She is Entirely Other
by wrenegade
Summary: What if Bella wasn't just a weak, naïve human? What if she was something more? This is my take on how the story would have progressed if Bella truly was "entirely other" as Edward had said in Midnight Sun. Bella's not a vampire or a werewolf, but something else altogether. Alternating PoVs Rated M for later lemons and language; Slight AU, but mostly Twilight Canon. EdwardxBella
1. Chapter 1

I took an idea from one of my original novels (not yet published) and applied it to the Twi-Verse. Someday, if I ever get off my arse and publish the damn thing, you may read about Reya, Lucas and the Company that created them, but for now, we've got my idea's installation into fan-fiction. Stephenie Meyer owns all things Twilight related, everything else is mine and mine alone.

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Chapter 1 – Bella PoV

Today, I became Bella Swan. The long lost daughter of the renowned Police Chief, Charlie Swan, of Forks, WA. Population of less than five-thousand people. According to our story, his high-school sweetheart Renée abandoned Forks right after high school, and didn't know she was pregnant with me. Furthermore, she never told Charlie about me, and now she's dead, so that left me to my next-of-kin, which according to my falsified birth certificate was one Charles A. Swan. The only truth about that is he really did have a high-school sweetheart named Renée, and that individual really is dead.

The truth is that Charlie Swan has been my friend and mentor for many years. He was fresh out of the police academy when we met the first time. He had been working private security to help pay for his schooling when he found out what the Company was doing to their "subjects." He helped me escape, found me a family, and kept me off the Company's radar for as long as he could. Eventually I became self-sufficient and he knew his presence was no longer needed.

We kept in contact though. Letters, pay-phone calls, even a telegram once or twice. Always something that was difficult or impossible to trace. I didn't want the Company to find me, and I didn't want them to know that Charlie was helping me. They'd kill him right away if they knew.

But even Charlie couldn't keep them away forever. A news story with my picture on it got out, and within a week, I was lured away from my house under the false-pretense of a young woman in distress that needed saving. I never could resist saving lives. It was built into my DNA. Literally. But no, there was no young woman. Rather, there was, but she was merely an actor, a pawn in the grander scheme to take me down.

While I was out on the wild goose chase, the Company swept in and killed my family. Parents, siblings, even the dog. Leaving me with nothing but the clothes on my back and a vengeful heart, I went after the Company. They thought that killing everyone, apart from Charlie, that I held near and dear would leave me nowhere to go, and that I'd return to them like a prodigal daughter. Little did they know that killing my loved ones left me nothing to lose, and I went after them instead.

I lost count of how many people's blood were on my hands, I lost the capacity to even care. They were evil, and they had to die. All of them. After I killed every single one of them, I went after the research, destroying every shred of evidence of my existence and the science behind it. As far as the world knew, Project Genexis never happened, and the subjects they tested never existed.

Once I had carried out my revenge, I truly had nothing left. I tried to drown my sorrows in vast amounts of drugs and alcohol, but nothing worked. I could down multiple gallon jugs of vodka and never feel a thing apart from a pressing need to pee. My metabolism burned off anything I put into it far faster than I could ever feel the effects. And forget injection drugs; the day they could work on my system, pigs would fly.

It was during one of these attempted binges that Charlie found me. He helped get me back into a better mental state and a month later, I had all the paperwork I needed to pass as Bella Swan, junior at Forks High, daughter of the police chief. Truthfully, Charlie was a father figure to me, sometimes more-so than my own adopted dad was. I looked forward to the change in environment, and the chance to start over with a clean slate. If only I could clean my memories away in the same fashion.

On this cold, rainy day, I made my way to Forks High School in my new-to-me truck. The truck itself was older than Jesus, but it ran and I loved it. It was the first thing that I felt I could truly call mine. Charlie bought it for me, but let me pay him back. It was in my name, well, the name of Bella Swan anyway, and it was mine to care for.

Pulling into the lot, I noticed that my behemoth of a truck wasn't all that out of place. It was perhaps the oldest vehicle in the lot, but didn't stand out as badly as the shiny silver Volvo that I saw at the other end of the lot. I wondered if the teachers had to share this lot with the students. No way did a teenager own a car like that.

I stopped by the office to get my schedule and was given a map of the school and a slip that I was to have all the teachers sign and hand back to the office at the end of the day. Right, like the Chief's daughter would be caught dead skipping any classes on her very first day. I'd sooner swallow a live chicken.

On my way to my assigned locker, I was accosted by a gaggle of high school boys. Groaning inwardly, I gave them my best smile and friendly greeting. Which of course practically had their pants dropping to the floor along with their drool. I should really have learned to rein that in, but alas. I was made to draw people in, my face alone got their attention, and the smile and natural twinkle in my eyes sent them over the edge.

"Hi everyone, I'm Bella," I finally said when no one spoke.

"Don't worry about the Neanderthals," a female voice from behind me chirped. "They'll get used to seeing another pretty face around eventually. You're like the shiny new toy today. I'm Jessica by the way." She thrust her hand out to me in greeting. I made sure to maintain intense eye contact with her during our handshake, so she wouldn't take notice of the odd texture of my skin. As long as I could keep people enchanted with eye-contact, they more or less ignored the subtle oddities about my appearance.

"Bella Swan," I replied, giving her a small smile. "Any chance one of you can direct me towards the English class with Mr. Berty?" I asked, checking the first class on my schedule. All of the guys immediately raised their hands and were fighting with each other to escort me to class. I doubted even half of them had the same class first period. Jessica rolled her eyes and I just chuckled at them. This was nothing new for me. I decided to play eenie-meenie-miney-moe with them just to get some amusement out of this ridiculous situation. The lucky winner was one Eric Yorkie, who proceeded to tell me he was the eyes and ears of the school. I doubted that very strongly, but let him live in his illusion.

I let him do all the talking as we strolled down the hall. The less I talked the better. Charlie always said it was better to be a mystery than an open book. That analogy confused me to no end, since many open books are in fact mysteries, but I digress. Once inside the class, I handed my slip to Mr. Berty, who promptly signed it and directed me to find any open seat. Eric was already waving me over to him. Evidently, the seat right in front of him was vacant. Awesome.

It was much the same for the rest of the morning. I had trigonometry with a pair of siblings that were about the most beautiful people I'd ever seen in my life. As the teacher went through roll call, I learned their names. They were twins named Jasper and Rosalie Hale. Jasper had tight curly golden hair that barely kissed the line of his chiseled jaw, while Rosalie had long flaxen waves that touched the small of her back. They had unnaturally pale and flawless skin and black eyes. I'd never seen someone with black eyes apart from myself, and that was only when I was in a state of extreme emotion.

They were very obviously inhuman, but I didn't know what else they could possibly be. I knew they weren't like me as I was the only one of my kind. History and science would dictate that the only other option was human, but it was so clear to me that they either had gone under extensive plastic surgery or something else was going on. Not that it was any of my business, but I couldn't help the curiosity.

The teacher made me give an introduction, which I thoroughly hated. "Um hi. I'm Bella Swan, Chief Swan's daughter. Just moved from Phoenix."

"Shouldn't you be tanner?" Rosalie hissed. As if she was one to talk. I was quite certain she'd turn into a lobster the moment her skin saw sunlight.

"Yeah, they say I'm part albino," I deadpanned. Half the class erupted in laughter, the other half were confused. Jasper was chuckling, but Rosalie just steamed. Clearly I was already on her bad side and we hadn't even officially met. The teacher calmed the class down and sent me back to my seat. I was thankful to be on the opposite side of the room from Rosalie. Something about her just rubbed me the wrong way. And it wasn't just the inhumanness about her appearance.

Finally lunch arrived and I was escorted by the same group of guys to a table where they all tried to pull out chairs for me. I ignored them all and opted for a seat between Jessica and a girl I remember being named Angela. "I'm Angela Weber," she said, repeating her name. I'd heard it twice already that day from two different teachers taking roll call, but she didn't need to know that I paid that close of attention. Well, it would seem as though I did, but really I just naturally remembered damn near everything.

"Yeah, you're in my trigonometry and Spanish classes, right?" She nodded, grinning at me, clearly pleased that I recalled her face in the crowd. Truly, she stood out to me because she was one of the few that didn't seem completely enthralled by my presence.

I met a few more students, one of which was Lauren Mallory, who apparently had it out for me before she even met me. She heard a rumor that Tyler Crowley had the hots for me, so that made me inherently evil and a bitch. I couldn't have cared less about high school drama and high school boys, so her dislike was unfounded, but I also didn't care about making any real friends. Then the atmosphere in the room completely shifted, pulling my attention to the door.

First came Jasper Hale, followed by a tiny pixie-like girl with short inky hair poking out in all directions. He twirled her around while miraculously keeping all the food on his tray, and she giggled happily. Next came the largest boy I'd ever seen, with a shoulder breadth the size of a football field. On his arm was the icy Rosalie Hale whose black eyes scanned the room for me and promptly glared once our eyes met. _Whatever, bitch. I don't have time to care about your disdain for me_, I thought.

Then it felt like all the air was sucked out of the room. A fifth student walked in. With hair that reminded me of the sunset and a face that belonged to a Greek god, he smirked slightly at some inner joke, I surmised and it only added to his beauty. His grin was lopsided and mysterious. Tall and lanky, he glided across the cafeteria floor with an inhuman grace, much like the four students that preceded him. They definitely were not human; though it was obvious they were trying very hard to be.

"Who are they?" I asked no one in particular.

"The Cullens," Angela replied, whispering lowly as if they could hear us talking about them from all the way across the noisy lunchroom. "The blonde is Rosalie, she and her twin Jasper are in our trig class." I nodded my understanding. "She's with the big guy Emmett, and Jasper is with the tiny girl, Alice. The last one is Edward."

"When you say 'with,'" I queried.

"Yeah, they're together… like together-together. I'm not even sure that's legal," Jessica interjected.

"Jess, they're foster siblings. Not actually related," Angela retorted.

"Yeah, but they live together… it's weird. They were all adopted by Dr. Cullen and his wife. He's like this foster dad slash match maker. But Edward's single. And apparently intends to stay that way. He never gives anyone here the time of day."

"Okay, then why is he staring at me?" I asked. As if he heard me, he immediately averted his gaze. But the entire time Jessica and Angela were telling me about his elusive family, he was staring at me as if trying to figure me out. _Yes, dude, I'm the new kid. Not that hard to figure out when the entire school population is under five hundred students_.

"Figures _you'd_ be the one to get his attention," Lauren spat. Apparently it was meant as an insult, but I could tell she was only showcasing her own insecurities. I rolled my eyes at the immaturity of it all. Ugh. High school. I had been so excited for the lunch break, and then all I could think of was getting to my next class. As soon as I was finished eating, I nearly sprinted to drop off my tray and left the cafeteria post-haste. My next class was Advanced Biology. One of the few advanced classes they even had in this school. Why Charlie had to live in this tiny backwater town, I didn't know. The resources and opportunities in Forks were abysmal.

Once I entered the biology room, I noticed it was already populated with a few students, Edward Cullen being one of them. He was seated at the back of the room at a table by himself. My lucky day. As I walked further into the room, my hair was abruptly swept up into the air by the fan on the teacher's podium. Brushing it out of my face, I got another look at Edward. His face was contorted in a menacing scowl, and his already black eyes seemed impossibly darker, nearly taking over the entire sclera of his eyes. If there was any doubt about his inhumanity before, it was squashed at that moment.

I had thought Rosalie glared at me with pure hatred, but that had nothing on this. If looks could kill, I'd be a pile of ashes, blowing about the room in the breeze from the ridiculous fan. Though even with the evil-incarnate that inhabited his face, he was still the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Finally after three agonizing seconds, I made it to the teacher's desk and had him sign the paper. My luck continued when he told me the seat next to Edward was the only available one in the class. I had been really excited about that notion, but now that Edward apparently hated my existence, I was dreading every step that brought me closer to him.

Eventually, I sat down, keeping to the far side of the table. As far from Edward as I could get. It seemed he had a similar notion and kept to the edge of his side as well. I was thankful that the day was dedicated to a lecture and we wouldn't have to interact with each other for any reason. "Bella, I understand you were in advanced program in Phoenix, so you may have already gone over this. Just let me know and I'll give you some more challenging work, if you need." I nodded at Mr. Varner, having every intention of doing no-such-thing. Even the most advanced biology work wouldn't challenge me, so it wouldn't make any difference to me. I'd just make straight As and then move on with my life.

As soon as the bell rang, Edward was out the door and down the hallway. Faster than any human had a right to be. Did he have any clue how obvious he was being? Even I knew how to hide myself better than that.

I glanced at my schedule again, already knowing my next class was Gym, but hoping that the letters on the page would magically rearrange and I'd have any class but. My awesome luck kept on when I got to the gym and saw Alice and Emmett Cullen were in my class. At least Spanish, English, and History were Cullen/Hale free. I'd have to revel in those classes and enjoy the relief from their presence. Though Emmett unnerved me least of all of them, which seemed odd considering how ginormous he was.

After roll call, we were divided into groups to play volleyball. I had to decide if I was going to play the role of super athletic student who was amazing at every sport or super clumsy girl that trips over her own two feet. I couldn't play somewhere in the middle, it was too obvious that I was faking it, I had learned before.

As my luck would have it, Emmett was on the same team as me. He grinned at me as if we shared some secret and then winked. What the hell was that about? I gave him a confused expression, but he just guffawed at me in response. Alice was on the opposite team, also smiling conspiratorially. It was as if they both knew something that I didn't and were waiting for me to figure it out. I opted for the super athletic role, as Emmett and Alice were both rather adept at volleyball. Even though she couldn't have been taller than five feet, Alice could jump with the best of us and her serve was unparalleled.

On my way out of the gym, Mike Newton stopped me. "Hey Bella, um, if you ever wanna hang out. You know, after school or whatever. That'd be cool."

"Thanks," I replied, giving him a small grin. "I have to cook dinner for my Dad most nights, but I'm sure there'll be times when we can hang." I didn't want to get his hopes too high, but I could see that I'd done just that. I knew Jessica had her eyes on him, and I didn't want to get in the way of that, and I already had made an enemy of her friend Lauren. It wouldn't take much for them to completely ostracize me. Not that I cared about popularity, but it was easier to be part of the in-crowd than be the outcast. That much I knew. And not that Charlie wouldn't love for me to have a social life, but he knew as well as I did how dangerous it was for me to be more than casual acquaintances with most people.

After I cleaned up from Gym, I made my way to the office. Edward Cullen was in there, of course, and it sounded like he was trying to get out of Biology. Did I stink or something? Jeez, even Rosalie didn't seem to hate me that much, and Emmett and Alice seemed to actually like me. So what the hell was his problem? Turned out he was about as lucky as I was and ended up having to stay in Biology. He thanked Mrs. Cope for her help and dashed out of the room, but not before shooting me another icy glare. _Calm your tits, dude_, I thought.

I handed Mrs. Cope my completed slip and made my way to my truck. Eric, Jessica, Mike, Tyler, Angela and Ben were all standing around it. "I think that if your car had a social security number, it'd be 'one,'" Mike joked.

"Don't bash Betsy," I retorted, deciding right then and there that my truck had a name. I said goodbye to everyone, hopped in Betsy and headed out of the lot. But not before seeing the Cullens walk to their vehicle. It shouldn't have surprised me that they owned the shiny silver Volvo I'd seen that morning. What really surprised me was that Edward wasn't with them, nor anywhere else in the lot. Curious, that.

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I hope you enjoyed my re-entry into the Fan-Fic world! I haven't decided if I'm going to re-post my old stories on here or not. My Fifty Shades of Grey fics are over on wordpress. You can find me there at wrenegadewriter dot wordpress dot com. I hope to be adding my Twilight Fics there, soon. Once I have the time to do so.

Edward's PoV of their first encounter will be up next! For the most part the alternating PoVs won't be a retelling of the same chapter, but there will be some overlap here and there. I think it's important to get Edward's initial reactions to the new girl. They certainly won't be the same as they were in Midnight Sun.

See you soon! I'll try for weekly updates. :)


	2. Chapter 2

Wow my story has been up for mere hours and I've already got three reviews and a handful of favorites/follows! Thanks so much everyone! I was working on a costume for a convention that I'm going to in July, but I got bored of it and decided to come back to the computer to get some more words written. About 2500 words later I'm at a good stopping point for chapter two. Normally I like my chapters to be between 3000 and 5000 words, but this one just ended at a good point for me.

I hope you enjoy!

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Chapter 2 Edward PoV

Alice was entirely too excited about the new student at school. She acted as if she was going to be best friends with the Police Chief's daughter, and kept her thoughts hidden from me for three days straight. Something else was going on, but the war and peace in Russian coupled with the endless soundtrack from Mean Girls playing in her head was more than enough to make me tune her out. She clearly hadn't mentioned any of her visions to her mate, Jasper, as his mind was clear of any thoughts about Isabella Swan.

It was a curious story, though, that much I had to admit. I had a hard time believing that Chief Charlie Swan had a seventeen year old daughter that he never knew about. Allegedly, his high school sweetheart Renée or something had left him high and dry after graduation, never to be heard from or seen again. And then, suddenly, a young brown haired girl appears on his doorstep with a suitcase and a copy of her mother's death certificate, her will, and the girl's birth certificate. One Charles A Swan was listed as the father.

Of course, it's only small town gossip that I have to go off of. I've never been close enough to the Chief to hear his thoughts. Though I couldn't think of a reason that he would lie about it. And apparently, this young Isabella had the Chief's eyes and some of his characteristics. No one that had seen the girl had any reason to doubt the truth behind the story. But we knew better. The story sounded exactly like one that we would use to give reasons to why a group of teenagers were adopted/fostered by a young couple. This time around, Emmett, Alice and I were Esme's niece and nephews. Our parents had been killed in a car accident leaving us to our mother's kid sister. Esme was only twenty-six in development, so it wouldn't have made sense for her to have kids so old. The stories we use are more or less the same wherever we go, just certain details altered here and there.

The Swans' story sounded just like one of ours, nearly exactly. And that alone had me wondering at the truth of it, and why now, all of a sudden did the Chief take in this young girl? Who was she to him, really? My curiosity got the better of me, and I vowed to myself that I would figure it out one way or another. Surely the girl's thoughts would tell me what I needed to know.

Once at school, I managed to miss contact with her. We didn't share any classes together in the morning, though Rosalie and Jasper had her in their trigonometry class. Rosalie already hated her for no apparent reason other than Isabella, or Bella I'd learned she preferred, was human. Rosalie wanted nothing more in this world than to be human again. Be able to have children of her own, grow old, have grand children and die happily. She'd never have that though. None of us would.

Lunch time, I figured, I'd have a chance to see the girl and get into her head. We all filed through the doors with food on our trays as we did every day. It pained me that the food would just go into the trash. Surely there was some kid in this school that would want the extra food. They were all still growing, all of them needed to eat a lot.

Finally, my eyes landed on hers. Jessica Stanley and Angela Weber were conveniently in the middle of telling her about us, so her thoughts must already be about me and my family. That would make it easy to pick them out of the din of thoughts filling the room. I tuned out the insignificant mental ramblings of all the students around me and focused on Bella. Though, I could see her, I couldn't hear her. Not a peep. If I didn't know any better, it would seem as though Jessica and Angela were talking to thin air. She then spoke, noting that I had been staring at her. I quickly looked away, not even realizing how blatantly obvious I was being.

"So, what does she think about us?" Emmett asked. I merely shrugged in response. No need to worry them just yet about the fact that the girl's mind was oddly silent to me. I went back to looking at her when I was sure she was no longer observing me. She looked rather uncomfortable at the table of teenaged boys and girls, as if she already knew she would never fit it but wanted desperately to do so. As I gazed at her, I took in her appearance.

At first glance she was beyond beautiful. Mahogany hair that fell in soft waves down her back framing a heart shaped face with big brown doe eyes beneath a thick fringe of black lashes. Her naturally reddened lips were perfectly pouted under her angular nose. Everything about her was completely symmetrical and perfectly proportioned. Barbie dolls weren't even made that perfect. Her beauty rivaled Rosalie's, which may be the reason why Rosalie hated her so much. Someone at Bella's table said something she found amusing and she smiled, her eyes twinkling as her teeth shone between her lips. Absolutely breathtaking. If I didn't know any better, I'd almost think she was a vampire.

I overheard at her table that she had biology the next period. This made me smile to myself as I knew the only seat vacant in the class was next to me. She would be my lab partner, and I would have to find out her truths and secrets the old fashioned way. Asking.

She bolted out of the lunch room early, apparently having had enough of the inane chatter at her table. I couldn't blame her for that. Simply being in the room with all these Neanderthal children was exhausting for an inexhaustible vampire like me. I followed shortly after her, but taking the short cut to the biology building. Short cut meaning moving at vampire speed, so I beat her there.

As it turned out a few students arrived before she did. Perhaps she had to use the facilities before class. Maybe that's why she left the lunch room in such a hurry. I forgot sometimes that humans had those needs. She stepped into the classroom and she was even more beautiful than when I had seen her a few minutes before. She made eye contact with me and offered a small smile. One that she probably thought I didn't see, but my keen eyesight gave her away.

Then my world turned upside down. She stepped in front of the fan and her scent blew my way. Normally, this would be of no consequence to me. Normally I'd swallow back a tiny bit of venom at the introduction of a new scent and get over it and on with my existence. But not today. Of course. Count on Bella Swan's blood to be the most delectable I had ever smelled. Count on her blood to send me into a near frenzy of desire. I had to have it. I had to have her. She was mine and there were no two ways about it. As she made another step into the room, I began calculating how to get her alone. It wouldn't do to let everyone in the room see my dastardly deed. I'd have to kill them all, and that would make a scene. Get the Volturi after me, and we couldn't have that.

I had to lure her out of the classroom somehow. Away from the building and into the woods. Yes, that would work quite nicely. _Edward, don't! _I heard Alice mentally shout at me. _You'll regret it! I promise you! _Shut up, Alice, I wanted to yell. I decided to yell it and she'd see the decision before I actually had to voice the words. Convenient way of communication, that. _Stop breathing!_ She hollered. _What would Carlisle think?! Or Esme? What about Bella's father? Do you think he'd ever stop looking for her?_ The name Carlisle halted my thought process. Esme's name made my mind turn around. The idea of Charlie Swan searching for his daughter until his dying breath had me hating myself more than I ever had in my existence. More than when I played god and preyed upon the murderers and rapists of the world. I had to ensure that Bella Swan always remained safe.

I couldn't kill her. I couldn't not kill her. The monster within me demanded satisfaction, and it would get it one way or another. _Seduce her,_ the monster whispered to me. _Take her, mind, body, and soul. And once she trusts you… drain her…_ Yes! That was the best scenario. Make the insipid girl fall for me. They all did. All I had to do was flash her a grin and dazzle her. It would be simple.

By now she was in the seat next to me, occupying the far edge of the table, as far away from me as the space would allow. Clearly I'd made her uncomfortable somehow. That would have to be remedied. First impressions were the most important of course. I listened to hear heart carefully as Mr. Varner's lecture droned on. The soft thuds of her pulse were music to my ears, far more interesting than any biology lecture ever had a hope to be.

Alice entered my mind again. _You won't be able to seduce her Edward. I don't know why, but she's resistant to being dazzled. Might have something to do with the fact that her thoughts are silent to you. Yes, I saw that. Please just leave, Edward. Go talk to Carlisle. I've seen that he can help you._

As soon as her monologue was done, she was back to Russian and Mean Girls on repeat. Moments later, the bell rang and I was out the door. Away from her scent and the sound of her luscious heart beat, my mind began to clear. I knew then, that the only way I could keep her safe was to leave. For some reason the thought caused immense pain in my chest, but my resolve was solid. I would leave school at the end of the last class and go see Carlisle about how to proceed.

Of course she would enter the office as I was trying to get my class schedule rearranged. Mrs. Cope did her best, but there were no alternatives for my science elective. Not even a study hall had an open seat at that hour. I thanked her for her time, holding my breath as I passed the evil girl on my way out the door. How dare she entice me so? How dare she make me want her so badly I can think of nothing else?

I left the school on foot, running straight to the hospital to speak with Carlisle. He always had the answers, whether he chose to agree or not, he always knew what to do. "Carlisle," I greeted, entering his office.

"Edward, is everything alright? Your eyes are nearly completely black."

"Carlisle… has there ever been a human that, it was near impossible to resist?"

"Who?" he asked, his mind curious but silent.

"The swan girl," I replied through gritted teeth. Just the thought of her had me wanting to race back to the school and abscond with her into the trees.

"Chief Swan's daughter," he stated. "Her blood called to you, didn't it? Like a siren?"

"Yes, Carlisle! Exactly like it. It's like her blood was made for me. She had classes with Rosalie and Jasper before me, and they weren't affected by her scent at all. No more than normal, anyway. Why me?"

"If you asked Aro of the Volturi, he'd call Isabella 'la tua cantante,' your singer. They are exceedingly rare, but it happens enough that there are written histories about it. About vampires that were lured by a particularly enticing human to the point that they could think of nothing but draining the human. It consumed their thoughts, driving them mad with need. I'm afraid Edward, that if you don't drain her, you'll lose yourself entirely. Revert to the monster within that I know you loathe so much. You really haven't a choice."

"You… you're giving me permission to drain her? To kill a human? What's the matter with you?"

"Of course not. You'd never have to ask my permission to revert to hunting humans Edward. I know that's not what you want, but from what I've read, you won't be able to resist her. Perhaps I'm mistaken, Edward, and I hope that I am. Or perhaps the fact that you haven't fed from a human in decades will do wonders for your control and you can somehow resist her. You have so far. In every story I've heard of, the vampire doesn't hesitate, doesn't worry about luring the human away from witnesses. All rational thought goes out the window. But you stopped. You paused just long enough to think about what you were about to do. But think of this, son. If you remain, you'll be surrounded by her scent and the sound of her heartbeat every day. I can only imagine that prolonged exposure would only make it harder to resist rather than easier. You'll do what you think is best son, you always do." His thoughts turned to a medical journal he had been reading, effectively blocking me from what he really was thinking of. Alice had been doing that for days and now Carlisle. I didn't press the matter because everyone was entitled to their privacy, and it wasn't their fault that it was nearly impossible for them to ever have it with me around.

I couldn't believe Carlisle's faith in me. Nor could I fathom the fact that he practically gave me permission to kill the poor girl. Though, suddenly, the idea of her no longer breathing, the notion of no longer hearing her beautiful heartbeat sent a piercing pain throughout my body. She had to live. She had to always live.

Once in Carlisle's Mercedes, I made my way north, crossing into Canada and within the next day I arrived in the Denali Wilderness of Alaska. Our cousins, aptly named the Denali Clan, lived there. They were the only other coven that abstained from human blood apart from my own. Tanya was the first through the door to greet me.

"Alice called," she said. "Told us you'd need to retreat here for a few days."

"Yes," I replied. "Carlisle says I've found my singer."

"Your eyes aren't red," Eleazer observed. "You didn't kill the human?"

I shook my head. "No… I wanted to. More than anything, but I just couldn't. The idea of killing a human is abhorrent to me on any day, but killing her… no matter how much her blood calls to me, I can't even fathom a world in which she doesn't exist. I wouldn't even want to be a part of it. I haven't even spoken to her once, but I can't ever let her die."

"Oh my," Eleazer commented before turning his thoughts to some old tome in Spanish. Now he was blocking me. First Alice, then Carlisle, and now him. What were they all hiding from me?

* * *

Back to Bella next. She's going to talk to Charlie about the Cullens. He's always been super observant and may know something about them that the rest of the town doesn't. Will Charlie already know they're vampires thanks to his friendship with the Quileutes? Or will he be as clueless as the rest of them?


	3. Chapter 3

Three chapters in one day... this is normally unheard of behaviour from me, so please don't get used to it. The words were just flowing out of my head and I couldn't help it. I wish I had the same inspiration for my original novels.

Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 3 Bella PoV

I stopped at the Thriftway on the way home to re-stock the meager items in Charlie's kitchen. He made no secret of the fact that he ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the nearby Diner. All I found in the kitchen was a six-pack of vitamin R, coffee, powdered creamer, sugar, and a can of cinnamon rolls that had been in the fridge for god knows how long. Not the way to nourish a metabolism like mine.

I met Mrs. Stanley while there. She immediately recognized me as Chief Swan's daughter. Clearly word about my arrival and spread through town like wildfire. "We're so happy you're here!" she exclaimed, nearly pulling me into a hug. "Have you met my daughter, Jessica?" she asked.

"Yeah, she saved me from the Neanderthal boys in our class this morning," I told her. She tutted and shook her head.

"Boys these days have no manners whatsoever. You keep your eye out for them. Especially that Mike Newton. He's nothing but trouble."

"What about the Cullen boys?" I asked without thinking first. A rare occurrence for me.

"Well, rumor has it that they're all with each other or something nasty like that. They're a very strange family. I'd stay away from them too, if you hope to have any kind of social life. They never come to any of the events around town. Apart from at the school or at the hospital, I've never even seen them. Well, maybe I've seen Mrs. Cullen at the market once or twice. Oh, and be careful what you say around Lauren Mallory. Jessica pretends they're best friends, but she calls her a frenemy or some such thing. Lauren will twist your words around and make you into an outcast sooner than you can blink if you're on her bad side."

I thanked her for her "advice" and made my way out of the store and to my house. Charlie owned a small two story house with two bedrooms, one bathroom, a decent sized kitchen and living room, and an attached garage. In the garage was an old fishing boat and more fishing gear that I ever cared to see. He did have a deep freezer out there, so I had to make a trip out to the garage to deposit some of the meat I purchased. I settled on making spaghetti as it was fairly easy but still delicious.

I was in the middle of rinsing off the pasta when Charlie strolled in, hanging his holster on the coat rack, but not before taking the magazine out of his gun. I wondered if that was a habit before he acquired me or if he just started to do it. Not that I'd ever have any use for a gun. There were other things I could do that were far more effective.

"Heya Pops!" I greeted, punching him lightly in the shoulder.

"Pops?" he echoed. "A guy could get used to that." He ruffled my hair. "You're cooking? You don't have to, Bells. You know that right?"

"Someone's gotta keep you from your path down heart attack alley. It certainly hasn't been you," I jested. He laughed, shook his head, and made his way upstairs to change out of his uniform before dinner.

"Smells good, Bells. Spaghetti?" I heard him say in a quiet voice.

"Yeah," I called up. Sometimes he forgot that while he never had to yell for me to hear him in the house, if he wanted to hear my reply, I had to yell. Super-sonic hearing didn't go both ways. And if any neighbors were near enough to the house, they'd hear me having a one-sided yelling match with myself.

A few minutes later, he was in the kitchen at the table, dishing up our plates of spaghetti. He spread some garlic butter on bread and dug into his meal. "I could get used to this too, Bells. But you really don't have to cook every day. I can help out too. I'm a master at the grill."

"Bells, huh? Y'know, I think I like that." My name had always been Isabella, but previously my nickname had been Isa. When I became a Swan, I decided to forgo that nickname and all the memories that came with it and become Bella.

"Bells and Pops," he replied. "Aren't we a pair?"

"What do you know about the Cullens?" I asked once our laughter died down. He quirked an eyebrow at me. "I have all of them in some of my classes throughout the day and they seem a little… different, I guess. The other kids said they pretty much keep to themselves and are a bit weird. I thought I'd get the Chief of Police's thoughts."

"Dr. Cullen has been a real blessing at the hospital. He could make three times what he's making here easily at some other big city hospital, but his wife wanted to live in a small town. We're lucky to have him. And I've never had a lick of trouble from any of his kids. I'll admit to being concerned when I found out a young doctor, his wife and their five teenage foster kids were all moving in, but I can't say I've ever even seen any of the kids around town.

"What's weird though is that nearly everyone from the Res refuses to go to the hospital now that he's there. They have some kind of animosity towards the Cullens and Billy won't tell me anything."

That was weird. Leave it to Charlie to notice something off about the Cullens that no one else had pointed out to me yet. "He won't tell you why they refuse to be treated by him?"

"Nope, but they act like they know something that the rest of us aren't clued in on, but won't tell me what it is. It's like it's not their secret to tell, or something. I dunno. I let it go because I don't want to ruin my friendship with Billy over some people I don't even know."

We chatted back and forth during the rest of our meal. I tabled my thoughts about the Cullens for a later time. After he helped me clean up the dishes, I headed towards my room to work on the homework I'd already been assigned.

Thankfully it was all material that I was more than familiar with, so it took me less than twenty minutes to get the work done. But then, that left me with nothing to do for the rest of the evening. It was only six thirty. I was consumed with thoughts of Edward and his family.

Something was seriously off about them, but no one else seemed to pinpoint what it was. Sure, people said they were kinda weird and kept to themselves, but that was the façade they created. They kept other people at a distance on purpose. Like I did. But they weren't like me. Nobody was like me.

By morning, I'd resolved to confronting both Edward and Rosalie about why the apparently hated me so much. I'd never even exchanged words with Edward and Rosalie had disdain for me long before she spoke to me. It didn't make any sense to all-encompassingly hate someone you didn't even know.

When I arrived at school, a white jeep was in the place of the silver Volvo and everyone but Edward emerged. Alice walked intently towards me, which seemed odd, but I waited for her nonetheless. "Hey Bella," she greeted, reaching up to plant a kiss on my cheek. Well, alright then. Her lips were cold as ice.

"Um, hi Alice," I replied, awkwardly.

"Do you want to partner up for volleyball drills today?" she asked as she threaded her arm through mine and led me towards the building that housed my English class.

"Um sure," I replied. She followed me into the class and handed the teacher a note before taking a seat next to me. "Are you… are you in this class?" I asked.

"I am now," she chirped. "I had to rearrange my schedule a bit to get all the graduation requirements in order." She said the sentence as if she rehearsed it a hundred times before having to say it. If she didn't change her schedule for that reason, then why did she? Was it because of me? I wanted to ask why Edward wasn't present, but didn't want to give away that I cared.

"Edward's sick," she said out of nowhere. I hadn't asked the question, but she'd answered it all the same.

"Oh, that's too bad," I replied, noncommittally. She smirked at me as if knowing I did care. Even though he apparently hated me, I didn't wish him ill will. I didn't want him to be sick. If anything I just wanted to see his face again, even if he had that menacing scowl on it still.

"He'll be fine," she assured me. "I think he's more stressed than anything. _Someone_ rocked his world yesterday." She wagged her finger at me.

I stared at her as if she sprouted a third eye. "What? No I didn't… I did no such thing. He didn't even talk to me yesterday. In fact, he gave me the strict impression that he hates my guts."

"Far from it, my dear. He doesn't know it yet, though. But he will. I've se—I'm sure of it," she replied. It sounded as if she was about to say, "I've seen it." But that couldn't be possible. Right?

Before more conversation could be had, Mr. Berty called the class to attention. I spent the hour thinking about what Alice had said. Was Edward interested in me? Romantically? I didn't know how I felt about that. I hadn't even shared two words with the boy, but I already knew he was the first and only boy to ever catch my attention in my entire existence. Getting close to him would be dangerous for both of us, but especially for him. Kissing was out of the question, let alone anything… more. And knowing he was a teenage boy in this day and age, he was bound to want more.

In trigonometry class, Alice appeared again, some how haggling the seating arrangement so she sat next to me and Rosalie and Jasper sat in front of us. Jasper in front of me, thank goodness. I didn't want to deal with being directly behind the ice-queen as I'd heard others refer to her. It was a fitting nickname. But since I didn't actually know her, I didn't like to think of her as that. She more than likely had her reasons to act the way she did. Though I did notice she seemed far less cold to me than the day before.

"I think I'm in your history class now, too," Alice remarked. "And Jasper. He switched so we could have class together. We should partner up and study together."

"Um, sure," I agreed, not fully sure to what I was agreeing.

"Great! I heard a rumor that we're about to be assigned some huge group project. We should totally just team up. The three of us! What do you think, Bella?"

"Yeah, that's fine. I love history, so it'll be fun." It was the complete truth. History fascinated me. I loved learning about ancient cultures and events, how they shaped who we are today and how our country is run.

I greeted Angela as she came in, so she'd know I wasn't completely shunning her for the Cullens now. They were the ones pursuing me, not the other way around. Or rather, Alice was pursuing me. For what reason, I hadn't figured out yet.

By the time Gym was over, I'd had about as much Alice as one could stand. I didn't know how her family put up with her. For someone so tiny, she had so much energy. There was a never ending stream of words coming out of her mouth. Sometimes, she spoke so fast, even I had a hard time keeping up. Emmett saved me though, when he offered to switch partners with me half way through the class. Alice was pouting, but I felt glad of the relief of her never ending conversation.

Emmett and I just went through the drills, setting each other's bumps and spiking each other's sets. We were a good pair, even though he had to be at least a foot taller than me. Closer to seven feet that six, perhaps. He never asked me about Edward, never brought him up, just playfully teased me about my paleness and laughed wholeheartedly when I was able to dish the insults right back.

My relief of the pixie was short lived when the whistle was blown and we made our way into the locker rooms. Emmett couldn't save me there. Alice began commenting on my clothing and asking me when the last time I went shopping was. She offered to take me shopping in Seattle some weekend and update my wardrobe. I knew she meant well, so I didn't take it as an insult, but truthfully, I liked what I wore. Jeans, t-shirts and hoodies were my style. She could drag me into any store she wanted, but she couldn't force me to buy anything.

"You should come over tonight," she suggested. "We can plan out our History project."

"I have to cook dinner for my dad," I replied automatically. Her face fell. "But you and Jasper could come to my house, if you want." Then her eyes lit up and she began bouncing around in place. Who does that after they're six?

"Yay! I'll go tell the others, and we'll meet at your truck! Oh, I'm so excited!" She gave me a hug then. It felt like hugging a statue. A very cold statue. From what I gathered, they had never had so much interaction with another person in this town. So why me?

I left a message for Charlie at the station, hoping he'd get it before he left for home. I didn't want him surprised to see a total of three teenagers in the house. While Jasper set out the various History books he'd gotten from the library, he said, I set to making enchiladas for dinner. "Should I make enough for you two, as well?" I asked.

"No, don't worry about it. Our mom has us on a strict gluten free diet, high in protein and iron," Alice replied. "We'll eat later." I nodded in response, making a mental note to grab some gluten free items the next time I was at the store, so I had something to offer them apart from fruit and veggies. Once the enchiladas were ready, I tossed them in the oven and joined Alice and Jasper at the table.

We were to pick any battle from one of the American wars and create a 3-D model of it, as accurately as we could. The pieces in the model didn't have to be well made. One could use stick figures, but they had to be well-placed. This meant we had to pore over journals and articles written about the battle of our choice and try and arrange the soldiers, officers, cannons and scenery carefully. "Didn't they have artists that would depict battle scenes back for the revolutionary and the civil wars? Before there were cameras that could capture that kind of scene? We could pick one of those images and re-create from that," I suggested.

"Great idea!" Jasper exclaimed. "I think I have a book of those here." He dug through his pile of books and pulled one out that was indeed filled with hand drawn and painted images of various battle scenes throughout the civil war. We opted for any battle but Gettysburg because it was probably going to be chosen by the majority of our classmates.

I paged through a few of the books Jasper brought, and realized they were not books that any high school library would likely have. First of all, they were old. Very old. First editions. If a library had first editions of any old book, they weren't allowed to be circulate. Second of all, a few of them referred to the Civil War as the War of the Northern Aggression, which I knew was what the confederates called it. These books were clearly written by confederate enthusiasts. I wondered where he'd gotten them from.

Before I could ask about it, the door opened and in walked Charlie with a couple of pizzas. "Dad, I made dinner," I said before I could introduce him to the others. "And they're not staying for dinner. And even if they were, they can't eat pizza."

"Well, hello to you, too, Bells. Who are your friends?"

"Alice Cullen and Jasper Hale," I finally said. He raised his eyebrow slightly but caught himself, hopefully before they noticed. "Guys, this is my dad, Chief Swan."

"Nice to meet you, Chief," Alice said first, holding her hand out to shake his. I wondered if he'd notice the temperature of her skin as much as I had. Jasper remained seated but simply nodded at Charlie. Maybe cops made him nervous. He was a teenage boy after all.

"Well, I'll just throw these in the fridge and take 'em to lunch for the boys tomorrow," Charlie said when he realized I was making enchiladas. An hour later, the enchiladas were done and we had a rough sketch drawn out of how we were going to build our model. I agreed to come to their house on Saturday and work on the project.

A navy blue BMW rolled up and a young woman with caramel hair stepped out of the car. She had pale skin and golden eyes like the Cullens, so I figured she was their mom here to pick them up. That was when it hit me. Golden eyes? Yesterday they all had black eyes. Every single one of them. And today, they were golden brown, almost like a hawk or a falcon. I had been told by several people that they weren't biologically related, so how could they all have the same shade of eyes? It wasn't possible. Especially with a color like that. My evidence of the Cullens being something other than human was piling up by the minute.

"Bella, this is Esme, our mother. Mom, this is Bella Swan," Alice introduced as I walked them out the door.

"It's so lovely to meet you, Bella," Esme said, squeezing my hand affectionately. She had the word 'mother' written all over her. Even though she couldn't be old enough to have teenage children, I could tell she loved these nearly grown kids as her own. "Alice said you'll be coming over on Saturday. Anything special I can get you, food wise?"

"Oh, no, I'm not picky. Alice mentioned that you're all on a gluten-free diet, so don't go out of your way for me. I can convert for the day." She smiled at me and said she'd work with that.

The rest of the week passed by in a blur, Edward never showed his face once. He must have been really sick to miss that much school. I saw the teachers handing his siblings extra worksheets to take home to him, so I knew they expected him to come back, but apart from having mono, I didn't know what kind of illness would keep a kid out of school so long. Plus, no one else in his family was sick, and no one else at school that I noticed.

I had a feeling that he wasn't sick at all, and was simply avoiding me. Alice and Emmett had alluded to the fact that Edward liked me, so perhaps that made him afraid of me. It wasn't the first time a boy had been intimidated by me.

Friday at lunch, Mike invited me along with the group to a movie in Port Angeles. We would be going to eat first. I agreed, deciding I should vary up my social groups so as not to appear to be attached to anyone in particular. The Cullens were warming up to me, even Rosalie didn't glare at me so much, but that was no reason to abandon the idea of becoming friends with the others. I had decided that Charlie's suggestion of "casual acquaintances only" was for the birds. If High School was going to be at all tolerable, I needed to have some friends. Maybe not close enough friends that I could share all my deepest secrets with, but at least people to go out and do fun things with.

Angela followed me home so I could drop off my truck and then we were going to pick up Jessica and Lauren on our way to Port Angeles. Mike was picking up the guys in his suburban. I hoped Laurens disdain for me since day one had passed. I hadn't said more than a few words to Tyler Crowley, so I thought he got the picture that I wasn't interested. She seemed in good spirits, so I figured everything was good.

We met the guys at a restaurant called La Bella Italia. No pun intended. "The girls said they wanted Italian food, and this is the only place."

"It's okay, Mike," I told him. "I'm fully aware that my name is also a commonly used Italian word." We were sat at a huge table and served a few dishes family style. I gorged myself on the mushroom ravioli, it was out of this world.

At the theater, I was sat between Mike and Eric. Jessica was on Mike's other side and I hoped she would steal his attention, but it was not to be. He and Eric were both angled towards me and had their hands on the arm rests, palms upward as if in invitation. Great. I managed to enjoy the movie even without the use of the armrests and was glad I came out with them. We made plans for the following weekend to go surfing at a beach nearby, which sounded like a blast to me. I'd have to see if Alice wanted to come, or anyone else from her family.

When I got home, I had the distinct feeling that someone had been in my room. Nothing was out of place, the door was shut and locked like I had left it and the window was closed. Being on the second floor made it difficult for someone to come in that way; but still, something as definitely off. I then felt as if I was being watched. I looked out the window and scanned the treeline for anyone that could be watching me, but saw nothing. Paranoia. Unjustified paranoia was all it was.

In the morning I got up and ate breakfast with Charlie before he decided to go to La Push to watch the game with his friend Billy. "Jacob would love to meet you," Charlie said. Jacob was Billy's teenage son. Fifteen years old from what I knew.

"Yeah, maybe some night we can have them over for dinner," I suggested. Charlie lit up at that idea. After we cleaned up breakfast, we both went our separate ways down the highway. Him south to La Push and me north to the Cullens. Alice had given me very detailed instructions on how to get there. Down to how many spruce trees I'd pass before I'd missed their hidden driveway all together.

I followed the winding driveway for at least three miles before finally reaching their house. It was a beautiful huge home nestled right against the river. As I hopped out of the car, I noticed the house seemed oddly silent, though I knew people were home. Cars were in the driveway and the lights were on. But I detected no movement from within. Couldn't even hear people breathing or notice their heartbeats.

As I approached the house, I pondered that thought more closely. How could I not hear their heartbeats? My hearing was keen enough and most of the time I tuned those sounds out, lest I go insane from the thousands of drumming pulses that could surround me every day. But I realized at that moment, that not once had I ever noticed a Cullen's pulse. Deciding to add that observation to my list of non-human traits, I knocked on the door.

Imagine my surprise when a certain bronze-haired god answered the door with a heartbreaking smile. "Hello Bella, Welcome."

* * *

Oh snap, Edward's back!


	4. Chapter 4

Here it is... chapter 4! I hope to have Chapter 5 up in a couple days, but I make no guarantees. My workload will have a lot to do with how much writing I can get done each day, and my time at home needs to be dedicated to other crafty projects that I'm working on. Oh and Laundry. I should probably do some laundry this lifetime ;)

Edward learns a few things in this chapter. Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 4 Edward PoV

Knowing others' thoughts was often more of a burden or curse than a blessing. As the days went by in Alaska, Tanya grew more and more restless in her mind. Outwardly, she kept her cook, but underneath the surface, she was a storm of thoughts and emotions. She desired me; I'd always known it. And now that I was visiting alone, she had no one to stand in the way of her pursuing me. Apart from myself of course, but she hardly saw that as an obstacle.

I'd never once led her on. Never once gave her the inkling that I returned an iota of what she felt for me. I was sitting in front of the fireplace watching the flames dance over the logs when she approached. She thought she was being stealthy and keeping her mind clear, but what she didn't know, and what I'd never bothered to share with her was that even if she could somehow keep her mind blank, I could still see through her eyes, see what her mind sees. And at that moment, she was staring at the back of my head.

I deftly dodged out of the way when she pounced. She landed unceremoniously in a heap on the floor. "No fair," she pouted, "How did you hear me coming?"

Shrugging, I replied, "When have I ever not? You weren't exactly being quiet."

"I don't get it Edward. What am I missing? We could be so great together, if you'd just give us a chance.

We'd had the same conversation a thousand times. Sighing inwardly, I gave her the same answer. "Tanya, we've been through this. We're not mates. You know it; I know it; everyone knows it. I'm not going to lead you on into a relationship that could end so quickly if one of us does find our other half. I won't put either of our hearts through that pain.

She gave me a sad smile. "I know you're right, Edward. At least about you. My mate isn't out there anywhere."

"You can't know that, Tanya. You'll find your mate. Just as I will find mine,"

_He already has and doesn't even know it,_ Eleazar's mental voice rang out. What?! Realizing I'd heard him, he appeared in the doorway.

"What do you mean I've already met my mate? Who?" I demanded.

"From what you've said about your reaction and thoughts, the human girl you've run away from," he replied.

That couldn't be. "That's not possible! She's human! Vampires don't mate with humans. There are laws against it!"

Eleazar shook his head. "That's not true, Edward. The law is that a vampire is not permitted to reveal his or her true nature to the humans, but there's an exception clause for mates. A human mate may be brought into the secret, provided the vampire has made plans to change said human."

"None of that means that Bella is my mate."

"Yes, but I knew when you told me that you'd rather not live in a world where she doesn't exist. Even though her blood is so appealing to you, the idea of killing her is as abhorrent as her blood is sweet. If she is your mate as I surmise, you wouldn't be able to drain her if you bit her, if you could even bite her. Your instincts to protect your mate would far outweigh the bloodlust," he explained.

I slid down the side of the sofa and crumbled into a heap. "But then she'd be changed. Doomed to this immortal existence. I don't want that for her."

"And what about what she wants?" Tanya piped in. I'd all but forgotten she was in the room. The idea of my mate already being within my grasp had to be painful for her. "You're already taking away her choice in the matter. It's not like she can be your mate and you not be hers. It doesn't work that way. If you're pining for her, then she will be pining for you as well. Maybe not as intensely, since she is still human, but the one thing I know about mates is that it's a two-way-street. You can't deny the pull you feel towards her. Not for long. And the desire to claim her and make her yours in every way will consume you."

"You say that as if you know, Tanya." She merely shook her head, blocked her thoughts from me and walked out of the house.

"Go back to her, Edward. Don't ignore the pull anymore. You deserve happiness," Eleazar said with a fatherly pat on the back. Now that they both had mentioned it, I did feel a pull in my chest. I had noticed it, but I thought it was just pulling me back to my family, where I thought I belonged. But the more I focused on Bella being the source of it, the more it ached in my chest. If she was feeling this ache, too, then she needed me near. I couldn't bear the thought of causing her harm in any way. But could I change her? Take away her soul just so I would never have to give her up? Or should I follow Tanya's words and let her decide? Truthfully, she could go running for the hills the moment she found out what I was.

If I left at that moment, I could get to Forks by Saturday morning. As I made the decision, my phone buzzed with an incoming text message. The message tone told me it was from Alice. She'd seen me decide to come home, I figured.

_Brother Mine, so happy you're coming home! Bella is coming over on Saturday to work on a History project with me and Jazz. Make sure you've hunted before she gets here, just in case! Love you! Pixie_

I couldn't have been happier about the fact that I wouldn't have to wait until Monday to see her beautiful face again. My main worry was that she wouldn't be interested in me. Especially with the way I treated her on Monday; let alone the fact that I was mysteriously MIA the rest of the week. Alice would warn me if Bella decided to hate me, right? And if she did, I had no clue what I would do.

I made my way home as fast as possible, stopping only to get gas and to hunt once I crossed the border into Washington. Lucky for me but unlucky for the mountain lion, I was able to sate my thirst on my favorite predator and a couple of deer. As it turned out I made it home with minutes to spare. I could already hear Bella's truck rumbling down the road. I quickly ran inside, changed my clothes, and ran my fingers through my unruly hair before hearing her slam the door of her truck and head towards the house. Her sure and graceful steps faltered a moment, likely as she was taking in the monstrosity that was our house. No one was making a move to answer the door and all thought I should do it.

Not hearing her thoughts was maddening. I wanted to know why she hesitated before stepping towards the house. I wanted to know what she thought of the house, of us… of me. But I would have to straight up ask her in order to find out.

I was standing directly on the other side of the door waiting the six agonizing seconds it took her to get from where she'd hesitated, to the porch, up the steps and to the door. Two more seconds until I heard her soft knock. I made myself wait another five seconds before answering the door. Longest thirteen seconds of my existence.

Once I opened the door, I spent a measly half a second taking in her exquisite face of which my memory did no justice before speaking. "Hello, Bella. Welcome." I greeted with a smile. Her face lit up and she followed me inside. I realized as her scent hit me that while it was still the most delectable scent I'd ever encountered, the desire to drain her was simply gone.

"I trust you're feeling better? Must have been a hell of a cold if you had to be out for four days," Bella said, the tone in her voice making it obvious that she didn't believe for a moment that I was truly ill.

I nodded and smiled at her. "Yes, thank you. It was more of a mental health retreat than anything. Sometimes high school can get a bit… taxing on the mind. On that note, I want to apologize for my behaviour on Monday. It was reprehensible of me to treat you in such a disrespectful manner."

She quirked an eyebrow at me. "You're sorry for hating my existence?"

"Well, the appearance thereof, yes. I was simply caught off guard by you, and that doesn't ever happen to me. I reacted poorly. Forgive me?" I let my eyes twinkle at her, compelling her to accept my apology and forget the entire encounter so I could start fresh.

She narrowed her eyes at me, clearly not falling under my spell, but accepted my words. "Very well, apology accepted." She stepped close to me, leaned up on her toes and planted a chaste kiss on my cheekbone, leaving a pleasant burning sensation behind. Her sudden action froze me on the spot. I saw her smirk at me as she walked away to greet Alice and Jasper who had apparently entered the room.

_She's very attracted to you, but still a bit wary of you_, Jasper thought to me. It snapped me out of my stupor… wary of me? Well, I'd have to fix that.

"Hey guys! I made some trees for the display," she said, holding out a box that had miniature but very realistic trees in it.

"Wow, these are great!" Alice exclaimed, pulling one out of the box carefully to give it a once over. "How did you make them?"

"I researched the native trees to the area where the battle took place, and found some around here. The trunks are just twigs, and I cut the little leaves out of the bigger real ones. And of course, the wonders of Krazy Glue," she explained. So she was crafty; I liked that.

"They look amazing," I said, peering over her shoulder. Alice gave me a look, telling me to butt out of her time with her new friend.

"Thanks," Bella replied sheepishly, a beautiful blush staining her cheeks.

"I'll leave you three to it," I told her. "I have a lot of homework to catch up on." It was true of course, but it wouldn't take me more than an hour to get it all done. I left them to their own devices trying desperately to think of something to do during the long hours they would be working on their project. Since when was Bella in History with those two, anyway?

Rosalie popped into my room and answered my unspoken question as if she were the mind reader, and not me. "Alice switched around her schedule a bit so she could have more classes with Bella. Apparently they're going to be best friends."

"And my mate," I whispered. Rosalie's eyes went wide.

"Your what?!" she hollered. I grabbed her arm and pulled her out my window, falling together to the ground outside. She followed me without question into the woods, well out of the earshot of everyone else in the house.

"Bella doesn't know anything yet. You're the first to know apart from Alice, and Jasper I suppose. I just found out yesterday when Eleazar and Tanya had to practically spell it out for me." I told her the whole story, concluding with my realization that the pull I was feeling was towards Bella and not to the family.

"What are you going to do then, when she asks to be changed?" Rosalie asked.

"This isn't a discussion I'm going to have with you, Rosalie. That decision belongs to Bella and Bella alone. I hope I can help her make the right choice, but I won't sway her, and I won't let anyone else do the same."

"Why would you be so selfish?"

"Selfish," I scoffed. "In what way is letting her make her own very informed choice selfish? What would you have me do, Rosalie? Leave her? Because _that_ would be selfish. That would be taking the choice away from her, which I can't do. What if you had met Emmett before the bear attack? I've learned that a vampire can sense their mate even as a human. Would you have been able to walk away?"

"Yes," she replied, though I knew she didn't mean it. She couldn't even fathom a world in which Emmett was at her side. She completely loathed this existence and wished for an end to it from when Carlisle changed her to the moment she found Emmett. Ever since then, he was the light in her life, her happiness. She wouldn't have survived without him. I've no doubt that she would have found a way to end everything by now if it weren't for him. And she knew it, too.

"Just… just make sure she knows everything before she decides, okay," she asked me. I nodded, pulling her in for a hug. We rarely showed each other affection, but in these moments, one could tell just how much we cared for one another. "It's actually been really hard to act like I hate her. She's really cool," she added. I could only chuckle.

Back at the house, Jasper, Alice and Bella were all concentrating very hard on painting their soldiers. Jasper took the confederate ones, naturally. While Alice worked on the Union solders and Bella took on the Native Americans. I glanced at their description, and they were depicting a battle in which the Cherokee Tribe fought in the war as well, along with the Union. The Cherokee brigade had their own flag that Alice had embroidered onto a small piece of cloth.

The work was impeccable, and not just from my vampire family, but from Bella as well. Her trees were incredible. If I didn't know any better, I'd say she just grew miniature trees, rather than creating them out of twigs and tiny leaves. I watched as she painted her little figurines. Not one brush stroke was out of place. She was very talented.

"What's for lunch, ma?" Emmett asked as Esme popped into the dining room to check on the project doers.

"I was going to make a chicken salad with cucumber slices. Bella does that sound good to you?" Esme asked.

"Um yeah, sounds great. Don't make something special on my account, though." I could hear the stifled laughter in everyone's minds.

"It's no trouble at all, dear," Esme assured her, swiping her finger across Bella's cheek. It seemed odd how familiar my family was with her. Then again, they had all week to get to know her at school and even after school. I was starting at the very beginning.

After lunch, where the lot of us simply ate in other rooms or pretended to swallow when we were really spitting our food into napkins or throwing over our shoulders into planters or trashcans, Bella, Alice, and Jasper were putting the finishing touches on their display. I knew they were going to get an A, and would ruin the curve for everyone else in the class. I compared the display to the few sketches that they'd found from newspaper publications and books around the time of the battle and they couldn't have made it more accurate. Even the leaves on the trees were perfectly placed.

"How are the leaves staying so green?" I asked, touching one lightly. It still felt alive and healthy, somehow.

"Oh, didn't I tell you? I'm a mutant, and my power is keeping leaves alive long after they've left the tree," Bella replied, winking at me. Emmett started laughing wholeheartedly, the windows in the house rumbling at the vibrations of his boisterous voice. "I preserved them. Simple as that," she added once Emmett had calmed enough.

"Bella, Alice and I can keep the display here over the weekend, if that's alright with you," Jasper suggested.

"Fine with me, it'll be better if it only has to travel in a car one time. And your cars are probably a lot more stable than mine," Bella replied.

"How old is that jalopy anyway," Emmett asked.

"Hey, don't hate on Betsy," Bella replied, her eyes flashing a darker color than normal for just a moment. "I'm fiercely protective over my truck, and I love her." Emmett threw his hands out in surrender, not wanting to piss off the little firecracker that was standing in front of him.

Carlisle came home then, and I learned that he was the one Cullen that Bella had yet to meet. She walked right up to him, gave him a hug and introduced herself as Bella Swan. "Well, it's very nice to meet you, Bella," Carlisle replied, surprised at her familiarity with him. "You're very welcome here, anytime. I'm sure my kids have told you."

"Yes, they've all been very friendly and welcoming," she confirmed. She said "all" so that must have included me. It looked liked she'd chosen to forget our encounter on Monday after all.

Bella glanced at the clock and saw it was nearing six pm. "I should get going. Charlie and I are going to dinner at his friend's place," she said. "I'll see you all at school on Monday?"

"Of course," I told her. I could tell she directed that question more at me than anyone. "I'll um, save you a seat at our table for lunch."

"That'd be great!" She smiled widely, flashing a mouth of perfectly straight and white teeth. I wondered if any orthodontist or oral surgeon on the planet could make teeth that perfect. She packed up the few things she brought with and headed out the door, giving everyone hugs, including me. As her arms wrapped around my shoulders, I could sense her breathing me in.

Clearly she found my scent appealing, which overjoyed me. I squeezed her gently, regarding her as a priceless crystal vase that Esme would kill me over if I broke. She sighed quietly and let her fingers run through the soft hairs at the back of my neck before pulling away. She kissed my cheek again and let me kiss hers before she said a last goodbye and left the house. My cheek and lips burned after her skin left them.

"Does she know?" I asked as I heard her truck drive away. "I mean, she seems so comfortable around us, letting us touch her and hug her. Has she asked anyone why we're so cold and hard?"

"She's never mentioned it," Alice replied. "I can't see why."

"It's like she's acknowledged that we're something different but doesn't care or doesn't want to know," Jasper added. "I feel curiosity and intrigue coming off of her whenever she touches one of us or we touch her. We've all given her hugs before, or shaken her hand or something. Alice says that if we slowly introduce her to the odd things about us, when she does find out what we are, it won't be such a hard blow."

"That makes sense," I state, much to everyone's surprise. "I suppose now that we're all home, I should tell you all what Eleazar told me. Bella is my mate, and now, after that hug, I know it to be true."

The collective gasp throughout the room was louder than I anticipated. "You're sure?" Esme asked, hope in her thoughts. She wanted to see me happy for so long.

"Positive," I replied. "I can feel the pull, even now. Even after she's only been gone a few minutes."

"Yep, she's your mate alright," Emmett said, offering up a high-five. I slapped his hand with gusto and had a huge smile on my face. One that hadn't graced my lips in many a year. I couldn't wait until I could be in Bella's presence again and have her in my arms.

"You're not gonna be creepy and eavesdrop on her now, are you?" Rosalie asked.

Well, she had me there. "I'll admit the thought crossed my mind, but I don't want to invade her privacy like that. If I'm ever at or near her house, it'll be because she's invited me." I had no idea how hard it would be to keep to that plan.

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It always bothered me how long it took Edward to truly realize what Bella was to him. I felt like it should have been more automatic. And now that he knows that she's his forever, he's going to pursue her as quickly as possible. ;)

Bella's dinner with the Blacks will be up next. In this fic, Jacob is already a werewolf and after having seen a photo of Bella at Charlie's house, he's hoping to imprint on her. What will his reaction be when he smells vampire all over her?!


	5. Chapter 5

Bella meets Jacob! SM owns all things Twilight related - everything else is mine and mine alone. Enjoy!

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Chapter 5 Bella PoV

Making the split-second decision to hug Edward was both the best and worst idea of my life. The best because hugging him was amazing and it gave me a chance to take in his addicting scent, and the worst because hugging him was amazing and it gave me a chance to take in his addicting scent. He was beyond gorgeous and suddenly seemed very interested in me. None of these things would bode well for my control to stay away from him. I had no idea what to do about it. If he were a normal human, I'd force myself to keep my distance, but it was obvious he wasn't. So what did that mean for me? For us?

I had another observation to add to my list, though. Well, more of a confirmation of a previously noted trait. All of the Cullens were completely hard as stone. Everywhere. Hugging each of them was like hugging a statue. A statue that hugged you back. Their core temperature had to be somewhere around thirty six degrees. That and when I laid my head against Edward's chest, there was no signature thumping coming from it. If there had been, I would have heard and felt the pulsing, but there was nothing but the sounds of his slow, even breaths. My hugs with the rest of the family confirmed what I had noticed before. Not a single one of them had a heartbeat. So what the hell were they? Aliens? Who didn't need a heartbeat to survive? It didn't make any sense.

I didn't comment on it or ask them about what I'd noticed, because they were entitled to their own secrets, and I trusted them enough that I knew if they felt I had earned the right or the need to know, they'd tell me. Besides, I had my own secrets to keep, and while I did trust them, I didn't trust them _that_ well. Yet.

When I got back to my house, I had a weird feeling in my chest that was pulling me in the direction I just came from. Maybe I forgot something at their house and my subconscious was telling me to go back and get it. Whatever it was, I couldn't let myself worry about it. If I did leave something there, Alice or someone would make sure it was returned to me on Monday. I pushed the odd feeling to the back of my mind and concentrated on the task at hand.

I had planned for Charlie's friends to come over here for dinner, but they'd insisted that we go to their place. They were having a big bon-fire barbecue and seeing as Charlie was an unofficial member of the tribe, I was invited, too. Charlie's friend Billy Black knew that I wasn't Charlie's daughter, so I didn't have to keep up the "Dad" charade while over there.

I changed into a bit of a warmer outfit since we'd be outside in the evening time, opting for a plaid flannel shirt and a fleece vest instead of the thin hoodie I had on before. Not that the air temperature mattered to me, but it'd seem odd if I didn't dress appropriately for the weather. I hopped back into my truck and made my way towards the reservation per Charlie's directions. He didn't need to leave them for me, but I knew he meant well. As I had never been to the reservation yet, I kept my eyes glued to the scenery around me.

It was trees, trees, and more trees for the most part, but as I rounded the last bend, the beauty that beheld me caused me to stop the truck instantly. In front of me was the most incredible sunset I'd ever seen. It had been cloudy all day, but the sun was able to break through the clouds just before crossing the horizon line and the colors were breathtaking. I thanked whatever scientist thought up the idea of giving me photographic memory, because I'd be able to retain that image for the rest of my life.

Soon, I arrived at the Black residence, parking next to Charlie's cruiser. I was thankful that he'd been here all day and we didn't have to ride together. My dislike of riding in his Crowne Vic was enormous. The rumble of Betsy gave away my arrival and Charlie came out of the house to greet me, with who I assumed was Billy in front of him in a wheelchair. Diabetes, I think, was the cause of that.

"Bells, this is Billy Black," Charlie introduced. I reached down and grasped his hand tightly in my own. Tightly for a human, anyway. He gave me a big smile, which was striking against his copper skin, and returned my greeting.

"Jacob! Come out and meet Bella," Billy called back into the house. Moments later, a huge man ambled through the door. He had to duck down to make it through without hitting the frame. This guy gave Emmett Cullen a run for his money. No way was he only sixteen years old.

As I made eye contact with him, his previously very excited face became sad and disappointed. Apparently I didn't meet his expectations, or something. I didn't know what Charlie had told him about me. I spared a glance at my would-be father, who moved his eyes left and right a few times, telling me that Jacob didn't know the real truth about me. Okay, so Billy knew some, but his son didn't. That surprised me.

I hadn't decided if I wanted Jacob to know, yet. We had only just met, so it wasn't really ideal to let a complete stranger know your deepest secrets. I figured after we spent some time together, I'd be able to judge his character and his capacity to deal with weird. He reached out his hand in greeting, the disappointed expression on his face replaced with a genuine smile that twinkled in his black eyes. Like his father, his pearly white teeth shone in stark contrast to his russet toned skin. He was really sort of beautiful. As I placed my hand in his, I noticed how warm he was. Warmer than me, and that just didn't happen. I ran around one hundred degrees all the time due to my faster metabolism and other inhuman bodily functions. This kid was even warmer than me.

First the Cullens and now this kid. What was with this town? "Wanna go grab some food before my bro—friends eat it all?" Jacob offered. Why would he replace the word brothers with friends, I wondered? I nodded and walked along beside him towards where I could smell the barbecue. Jacob introduced me to his friends: Quil, Embry, Paul, Jared, and Sam. They were all as enormous as Jacob, and when I shook their hands, they were all equally as warm as he was. One hundred and eight degrees from what I could tell. If they were humans, they'd be dead. So therefore, they couldn't be human. It simply wasn't possible.

Jacob and I settled on a downed tree near the beach, the roots on one end acting like a back rest. The other boys found logs or blankets near us and we all sat together. He handed me a soda and we dug into our meals. I went back for seconds and thirds, surprising Jacob and his friends with how much food I could put away. I shrugged and mentioned my fast metabolism. It was one of the few things I didn't completely lie about. My metabolism was faster than average, by about ten times, but still. There were humans that had to eat more than most due to their metabolisms, so it wasn't far fetched. They all shared a knowing glance and agreed with me. Given their size, I wasn't surprised that they had to eat a lot, too. If the Seattle Seahawks coach ever got a glimpse of these boys, they'd be drafted instantaneously. They all looked incredibly fit and fast. Even with as big as they were, they could be some intimidating running backs or defensive linemen.

After a few hours, the party began to die down and Jacob offered me a walk on the beach. I wondered if I'd have to fend off any advances, but my worry soon went away. "Sorry if I gave you a weird look earlier," he whispered.

"Yeah, what was that about?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I had hoped that there would be something obvious about you, but it wasn't there."

"What kind of something?" I pressed.

"It's nothing really. Billy told me that you aren't Charlie's real daughter and that you had a different upbringing. I guess I figured there'd be something written in your expression that would help solve your mystery."

"Sorry to disappoint, I'm pretty closed off most of the time. I don't really let many people in. It's easier that way. For me and everyone else. Charlie is the only one alive that knows the real me," I said, giving away way more than I ever planned to. Jacob just had a way of making me feel comfortable around him.

"Um hell of a handshake you have, by the way," he said, sort of changing the subject. I'd forgotten that I'd gripped his hand tight enough to break the bones if he were human. His temperature surprised me so much that I was caught off guard and not paying attention to my strength. However, since I didn't hear the telltale crunch of bones nor hear a hiss of pain from him, he was stronger than the average human as well. By a large margin, it seemed.

"Yeah, sometimes my strength gets away for me. I'm small, but wiry," I joked.

"Hey Seth," he suddenly said, greeting a younger boy who had run towards us. Seth actually looked to be about fourteen years old, though he still seemed more muscled than a boy his age should be. "Bella, this is Seth, Harry and Sue Clearwater's son. Seth, this is Bella Swan, Charlie's daughter."

"Nice to meet you, my lady," Seth quipped. Oh he was too cute for words. He leaned down as if to bow and took my hand in his. He kissed the back of it before gripping it tightly and turning a dark scowl to my face. What the hell? He sniffed my hand and his nose wrinkled as if he smelled something unpleasant.

"Um, Seth? Are you okay?" Jacob asked. Seth's teeth pulled back from his lips and he growled at me. Actually growled. "Oh Shit. Bella stand back!" Jacob leaned closer to me, took a deep breath through his nose and began growling along with Seth. Okay, what the hell was going on?!

The air around Seth's body seemed to start to shimmer and ripple. Before I could react, Jacob reached his large hand back and pushed me out of the way. He pushed me hard enough that I was flying through the air and landed on the ground about ten yards away. Okay, superhuman strength confirmed. "Seth, calm down," Jacob ordered. Just as the words left Jacob's lips, Seth exploded and in his place was a giant wolf. A Sandy furred wolf. "What the fuck?" I gasped.

Jacob turned to me for a split second, an apology in his eyes before he also exploded and was replaced by another wolf, even bigger than the Seth wolf. Jacob wolf was russet colored, like his skin, and simply enormous. Bigger than a horse. The two wolves shared a few growls, yips, barks and howls before Seth was finally calmed down enough to sit on his haunches. He spared a glance at me and began growling again.

Before long, five other wolves came onto the beach, each of them closer to Jacob's size, but the only one that was bigger than Jacob was the black one. The way he regarded the others, he was clearly the alpha. I watched with rapt attention as the black wolf ordered the others around with a series of barks and soon they were all behind a huge fallen tree, lining up facing me. The air began to ripple again and in a moment, all but the sandy furred wolf were humans. Jacob, Quil, Embry, Jared, Paul and Sam stood before me, shirtless and angry. They took a moment to put shorts on, one of them having the forethought to bring an extra pair for Jacob and Seth. It took Seth a few minutes longer, but he eventually turned back into a human and dressed quickly.

"So… um… werewolves?" I asked. I glanced up where the moon was shining dimly behind the clouds and noticed it was a mere sliver.

"We're not bound by the moon, so technically not werewolves. More like shape shifters," Jacob replied. "Tell me Bella, how well do you know the Cullens?"

"The Cullens? What do they have to do with anything?" Paul let out a bark of a laugh. "Um, the kids go to my school, I have some of my classes with them. I was at their house earlier today—"

"You were at their house?" Sam hissed. "What the hell were you doing at their house?"

I furrowed my brows at him. "Look, if you want to speak with me, you'll do so in a civilized and calm manner. I'm the one that just saw two boys I just met explode into giant wolves. If anyone here has earned the right to overreact, I think it's me. So shut your trap and let me speak." He looked sufficiently chastised and bowed his head, breaking eye contact with me.

"Like I said, I was at their house earlier today. Alice and Jasper are in my history class and we were assigned a group project together. I went to their house to work on said project. Now I know there's something different about the Cullens; that's more than obvious. But I haven't asked them what it is and they haven't told me. It's not my business.

"I could tell there was something different about you all as well, but I didn't ask. I never pressed Jacob for any information. First of all, we'd only just met, and second of all, everyone is entitled to their secrets, no matter how big they are. It's not my place to ask, regardless of how curious I am. That being said, I highly doubt any of you would have revealed yourselves to me by choice. Clearly something happened that set Seth off. He sniffed me and then started growling at me. I'm not asking for answers, just making my observations known. I'm no stranger to weird and strange things. I'm a glaring example of that."

"I'm sorry I knocked you back," Jacob said, remembering he'd pushed me so hard I flew off of my feet. His head was bowed and he wouldn't look at me.

"No harm done, Jacob. I'm pretty resilient. You all can rest assured; I won't tell anyone what I saw here tonight, not even Charlie." The relief that ran through them was palpable. Apparently they worried that I'd spill their secret to the whole world. "Like I said. Everyone is entitled to their own secrets. This isn't my secret to share, so I won't. not ever. To anyone. I just have one question, though." They were silent as they waited for me to ask it, with no guarantee that they'd answer. "Do you hurt people?"

"Humans? No. We don't hurt humans. We're protectors. Werewolves aren't the only predators out there," Sam explained. I was immediately relieved. I didn't want to have to take these boys out for harming humans.

"Don't I know," I whispered. I'd seen some monsters in my time. Granted, they were all humans, but still. Monsters.

"Sam, we have to warn her," Jacob said, looking at Sam. Based on where he was standing, he had been the black Alpha wolf. That made sense.

"No Jacob. Like she said, it's not our secret to tell. Bella," he said, turning to me. "Just be careful around the Cullens. They're not all they seem."

"Duly noted," I replied, saluting him. He didn't know, but I was more than capable of taking care of myself. "Um, I guess I better get home. Seth, I'm sorry for whatever I did that set you off. It seems to me that was your first time turning into a wolf. I'm sure you're freaking out; I know I would be. Jacob, everyone, it was nice to meet you. Again I'm sorry for seeing your secret. I promise that I'll never betray it. I hope we can be friends."

"Oh, you're one of us now," Jacob said, walking towards me. "Quileute or not, you fit right in," he added with a smile. He walked me back to my truck, tucking my arm in the crook of his elbow. It was a sweet gesture and I was very glad that I'd gotten to know him a bit before he exploded into a monstrous wolf. The wolf thing really only added to his cool factor. I could do a great many things, but shape shift into a huge animal wasn't one of them. Part of me was a bit jealous.

Charlie had already left by the time we got to my truck. Billy said he got a call about some wild animal attack and had to go to the station. Jacob and Billy shared a sad but knowing glance and it had me on edge the entire way home. I called the station, but Charlie wasn't there. They told me he was assisting with a search for a rabid animal of some kind. Normally it wouldn't have bothered me that he got called in while off-duty. It happened rather often. In fact, this wasn't the first animal attack since I'd been in Forks. But now that I knew that grizzly bears and mountain lions weren't the most dangerous predators out there, I was truly worried for his safety.

After pacing around the house for an hour, waiting for his call, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I left through the back door leaving a note on the kitchen table in case Charlie came back before I could find him. Starting at the station, I followed the signature stench of his cruiser far south into the next county. Why was he helping out the police in the next county?

I found the cruiser parked on the side of the road with a gaggle of other police vehicles and a fire truck. There were forest rangers wandering around and a grieving family being briefed. I listened closely and found out there was a man attacked in an old abandoned steel mill. The rangers told the family it was either a bear or a mountain lion, but that the body was pretty torn up. I looked toward the ambulance and saw the cart with a black body bag resting atop it. Whatever was inside the bag no longer resembled a human being. They would have to have a closed casket ceremony or cremate the body, I figured. No way would they be able to have _that_ on display.

Keeping to the tree tops, I followed Charlie's scent through the forest to the steel mill. There were more officers and rangers milling about there, seemingly doing nothing but waiting for further instruction from the Chief. He wasn't there. He'd taken a team and a few dogs and headed into the woods to track the animal. I caught the scent the dogs were tracking and immediately stopped in my tracks. I knew that scent, or rather a similar one. Seven similar ones to be exact. It was the same type of scent that belonged to the Cullens. It was sweet, fresh and inviting, this one reminding me of tulips and fresh rain.

My concern for Charlie heightened, I took off again, following their trail and the scent until it stopped at a lake. The dogs were trailing up and down the shore trying to catch it, but coming up with nothing. Charlie was there, speaking into his walkie and telling everyone that the search would pick up the next morning in the daylight hours. I waited, following him back to his cruiser before heading home to destroy the note I'd left for him. He didn't need to know that I was out following him around, he'd only worry needlessly about my safety.

"Find anything?" I asked once he came back. "I called the station to let you know I'd come home and they told me you were working with the force in the next county on finding some animal that attacked a guy."

"The body was torn up like… like nothing I've ever seen. We're telling people it was a bear or mountain lion, but… I don't know, Bells. I've never seen an animal do that. Not ever."

"Well, have you ever seen a human do that?" I asked. He looked at me quizzically for a moment. "If it wasn't an animal, it had to have been a human, right? So based on your years of experience, have you seen anything like that before? Like a serial killer or something?"

He shook his head as if to shake out the idea. "Washington State has put out more than its fair share of serial killers, I'll admit. But no, none of the known ones have ever torn a body up like that. Keep this quiet though, will ya, Bells? I don't want the townsfolk to get into a panic over something that might be nothing."

"Scout's honor," I replied, giving him the scout salute. "Going back out tomorrow to search?" I asked. He nodded and mentioned getting a few hours of sleep before setting out early.

I sat in the living room and contemplated joining him. Without his knowledge of course. I also contemplated confronting the Cullens about it. The fact that the scent was so similar to theirs unnerved me. I knew they were something other than human, but I didn't think they were killers. No, I knew they weren't killers. Sure, they kept to themselves and had their secrets, but murder was not one of them. I had always been a good judge of character, and my instincts hadn't steered me wrong yet. I wasn't about to start doubting or mistrusting them simply because the scent of whatever Charlie and his team were tracking matched theirs.

I fell asleep on the couch pondering all these things and slept right through Charlie getting up and leaving. He left a note for me saying he didn't want to wake me but was heading back down to help with the search. "Do not follow me," he demanded in his note. He knew me too well. Before I could even put on my shoes to do just that, the doorbell rang. I glanced at the door and saw Alice, Jasper, Emmett, and Edward standing there. A further look revealed Rosalie, Carlisle and Esme standing in my driveway.

"Um, hi guys. What brings you by?" I asked after answering the door.

"We heard about the animal attack. We wanted to offer our help with the search. But it looks like the Chief is already gone," Alice said. The tone in her voice told me that she already knew he'd be gone before they even got to my house. She tried to hide the lie, but I could see right through it.

"It's not gone public yet, so how do you know about it?" I asked, trying not to sound accusing.

"I examined the body at the morgue," Carlisle answered. "I've never seen injuries like that, and I agree with your father that it wasn't any animal that lives in this area. We're avid hikers so we know the parks well. We wanted to offer our services."

I shook my head. "Charlie won't like the idea of civilians in on the hunt. But I can call the station and find out if he's left yet. I'll come with you if he agrees to the help." I turned to grab the phone and gestured for them all to come in. Charlie was luckily still at the station, gathering the troops.

"Bella? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, Dad. Why do you always jump to the worst conclusion." He knew that by me calling him Dad that I wasn't alone in the house. "The Cullens stopped by. Dr. Cullen examined the body last night and he agrees that it wasn't an animal attack. They want to help in your search. More eyes in the woods means more chance of finding what or whoever did this. He said they're avid hikers and know the area really well. What do you think?"

He was silent for a few moments before replying. "Well, truthfully, the more the merrier. I was going to call Billy and see if some of his guys wanted to help, too." Suddenly I remembered something Sam said about the Cullens, and Charlie's own words about them. "But maybe with the Cullens coming, Billy won't anyway," he nearly growled. "Tell them to meet us at the mill," he finally stated. "And… yes, you can come too, as long as you stay with them, Bells. I mean it. I don't care how much you can take care of yourself, you will stay with them. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Dad. I promise I will stay with the Cullens at all times." I meant it too. With that I found my hiking boots, grabbed a flannel and headed out the door with the Cullens. They'd arrived in Emmett's Jeep and a Cadillac SUV that apparently belonged to Jasper. He, Alice, Edward and I piled into his SUV while the others took Emmett's Jeep. I gave them the address to the mill and we started off.

"I know that whatever killed that man wasn't an animal," I told them. "And I know it wasn't a human, either." I left it at that, letting them make their own conclusions about what I meant.

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What do you think the Cullens will make of her little statement? Will they spill the beans or keep the secret a little longer?


	6. Chapter 6

Here's Edward's PoV of the hunt for the nomads, and a few observations about Bella of his own. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to review this story. All the reviews are simply wonderful. I try to reply to each of them, but don't always have time right away, so if I missed you, I do apologize... it wasn't on purpose. And for those of you leaving guest reviews, thank you so much! In the past I had issues with Guests leaving scathing reviews trying to cut me down. As a result, I pulled all my stories and took a breather from writing fanfiction. Now I'm back with a vengeance and it's all thanks to a few of my fans pestering me to get back in the game.

Enjoy Chapter 6! I'm kind of on a roll today, so 7 may be out sooner than I planned. (So much for keeping to my no more than 1 chapter a week plan)

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Chapter 6 Edward PoV

Carlisle came home from the hospital around 3 am. He was the resident coroner and had to examine a body that had been brought in. "I might have believed the animal attack story if the body wasn't completely exsanguinated," he mentioned. "Whoever did it tore at their bite marks to mask them and shredded the rest of the body to nearly unrecognizable, leaving the face unscathed though. They got the ID almost right away. A local guy, worked for the logging company. I detected three scents on it, so we've got a trio of nomads in the area.

"I think we should handle the situation before it gets out of control. Chief Swan doesn't believe it was an animal either and has been leading search teams through the forest near the mill. The last thing I want is for these nomads to take out Bella's father. After just losing her mother, she'd be destroyed."

"I agree," I stated. "Why don't we join the search efforts? It's a near guarantee that with us on the trail, we'll find the nomads long before the police and their search dogs will."

With that we all hopped in our vehicles and went to Charlie and Bella's house to ask his permission to join the search. Alice had seen that Charlie wasn't home but that the approval of our help would go over better with Bella asking Charlie directly instead of the rest of us.

Bella ended up getting her dad's permission and elected to come along. I went to protest, but Alice stopped me, showing me a vision of Bella going off on me and calling me an overprotective caveman and coming along anyway just despite me. Not wanting her angry at me, I held my tongue, vowing to stay by her side the entire time. Though I did notice that it was a vision of my decision, rather than of Bella's reaction. Alice had a hard time truly seeing Bella. Occasionally she could see where she physically was, but she rarely saw much of anything. It was as if Bella was blocking her somehow, the way she blocked my gift.

Once in the car, Bella was oddly silent for the first few minutes. When she did speak, we were all floored. "I know that whatever killed that man wasn't an animal. And I know it wasn't a human, either." If there was ever a moment that I wanted access to her silent mind, that was it.

"Um, what do you think it was then? Aren't we kind of out of options?" I asked.

"Are we?" I couldn't tell whether she was going to out us or give us her theories about how we're not alone in the universe. I did know that she'd gone to the reservation the night before. Alice confirmed as much when she saw Bella driving towards La Push and then having her future completely disappear due to interference from the wolves. Longest evening of my life, waiting for her to be safe at home, knowing I couldn't come to her aid. "I'm not entirely sure of anything right now, but whatever it is has my Dad freaking out. He'd have to be to agree to civilians joining the hunt for whatever did this to that man. And for allowing me in on it, despite how unnecessarily worried he is about me."

"Your Dad worries for you. Every dad should," I retorted.

"Well, you don't know about my relationship with him, so your comment doesn't entirely apply, but yes. Every dad should worry about their daughters, regardless of how capable they are." She was giving me subtle hints to something, but I couldn't figure out what.

"In other news, how was your evening Bella? You said you were going to your Dad's friends' place for dinner?" Alice asked, effectively changing the subject.

"Yeah, to his friend Billy Black's house," she replied. "They were having a big bon-fire barbecue out on the beach. It was a lot of fun." Her eyes held a mystery that I desperately wanted to know. Something else happened last night, I knew it. I only hoped the Quileutes didn't violate the treaty and reveal what we are to her. Though if they had, and painted us in the way they see us as savage bloodthirsty monsters, I highly doubt she'd have willingly hopped in the car with us.

Soon, we arrived at the mill and joined up with the other search party, which comprised of cops, fireman, and forest rangers. Chief Swan thanked us for coming and advised that we stick together as a search group. He pulled Carlisle aside and asked him to ensure that Bella stayed with us as she had a tendency to wander off on her own without telling anyone. Bella couldn't possibly have heard him, but I saw her roll her eyes at him as if she did. Perhaps she merely guessed what Charlie was saying to Carlisle. I took the rare moment of closeness to Charlie to dive into his thoughts.

His mind was consumed with the gruesome scene he saw the day before and the trail they lost at the lake. Bella had walked off to speak with a couple of the officers, so I took the opportunity to speak about the nomads. "From Charlie's thoughts, it's clear that the nomad they'd been following swam across the lake to confuse the trail. And from there probably took to the trees. Even we'd be hard pressed to find the trail if they did that. It seems as though they were only following one trail. I doubted the nomads were travelling single file or even in the vicinity of each other if they were trying to throw off the humans, so they likely split up and the trail the humans did find is just a decoy."

"Agreed," Jasper said. "Now the question is do we follow the humans' suggestion and try to pick up a trail from the lake or do we do something else? Having Bella with us isn't going to make it easier, or faster."

"I know, but Charlie asked that she stay with us. We'll have to make do," Carlisle replied.

"You all may be avid hikers, but I'm faster than I look," Bella said, likely having heard Carlisle's remark.

"Oh Bella, no. I didn't mean to imply that you—"

"No harm no foul, Carlisle. We're good. My skin is a bit thicker than that." Bella offered him a wink with a big smile, and he immediately calmed, happy that he hadn't offended her. "Shall we make our way?" she suggested. We all nodded and let her lead the way having decided that one or two of us would run off in another direction if need be and come back before Bella noticed our disappearance. Apparently she'd told the officers that she wasn't going to start at the lake, but rather at the crime scene. They assured her that they had started there, and the trail that went to the lake was the only one. Bella thanked them for their assurances but decided to go with her gut. Given she was the police chief's daughter, they didn't argue with her.

As fate would have it though, Bella found the trail of one of the nomads. A male from what we could tell. The humans had been tracking a female scent. Bella stopped in front of a tree and brushed her hands over the bark as if noticing some minute difference. I approached and looked at the tree more closely. Sure enough, there was a slight depression in the wood from where the vampire had gripped it to climb. No human would have ever noticed that.

"Do you see this?" she asked. "The difference in the texture? It's hand shaped." She placed her hand over the markings and sure enough it was in the shape of a hand larger than her own. "I think the unsub climbed this tree."

"Unsub? You watch too much criminal minds, Hell's Bells," Emmett commented.

"Hell's Bells? That's good. Did you hear my dad call me Bells or something?" Bella asked.

"Um no," Emmett replied quickly. "Bella to Bells to Hells Bells… wasn't that far of a stretch. How about Bells and Whistles. Would you prefer that? Or Silver Bells? I could call you that at Christmas time."

"Hell's Bells will do just fine, Em," she said, laughing. "Unsub is unknown subject. I figured it was fitting considering we don't even know the species of this particular attacker. But given this hand print right here, I'd say it's from the primate family at the very least." With that she turned and promptly climbed the tree, leaving Emmett rolling on the ground laughing.

"Bella! Be careful!" I hollered.

"Oh calm your tits, Edward. I've climbed a million trees in my life and I've never fallen once," she declared. Then she gauged her jump and flew effortlessly to the next tree. Alice climbed up behind her thinking to me that it would make the most sense for her to be the best climber with how small she was. I agreed and stayed on the ground, ever watchful of Bella's foot and hand holds on the slippery high branches. "If you know what to look for, this unsub left a very obvious trail," Bella said as she pointed out another impression in the bark of the next tree.

_If she were a vampire, she'd be a hell of a tracker, _Jasper mused in his mind. I growled at him. _Sorry, just a thought. I'm not saying I'm gonna go bite her right now. Like Bella said, Calm your tits, Edward._ I had to chuckle. I liked Bella's turn of phrase and it sounded even funnier in Jasper's mental voice.

I watched completely in awe as Bella leapt from tree to tree. Primate family indeed. She was following the nomad's trail perfectly, landing just where he landed and taking off just the same as he did. The evidence in the tree really did give him away. It was almost as if he wanted us to find him. A few hours into our search, Carlisle's cell phone rang. He had given his number to the chief so that he could stay in contact with us.

"Find anything?" the chief asked after Carlisle answered.

"Well, your daughter seems to be hot on the trail of something, but we've found nothing other than some odd markings on trees. No hairs or bits of clothing or anything concrete. Bella seems to have a knack for this though."

Charlie cleared his throat. "Yeah, she seems to be taking to this forest town life pretty well. We're not coming up with anything and we've scouted around the entire lake. The trail is cold. It's gonna be dark soon, so the rangers will pick it up tomorrow. It's not looking likely that we'll find whatever did this now that 24 hours have passed. We just have to hope that it doesn't attack another person." I had to agree with what he said. Before long, the scent trail would vanish and I did hope the nomads would move on to another region before hunting again.

Bella came down from her tree, and landed agilely next to me. _Damn, she would own at American Ninja Warrior, _Emmett thought. I had to agree, with the way she flew through the trees, I'd almost think she was a vampire. If it weren't for her warmth and flowing blood, I'd think exactly that.

"Was that my dad?" she asked. Carlisle nodded. "Did he call off the search?"

"For now," Carlisle confirmed. "He said the rangers will pick it up tomorrow, but that the likelihood of finding whatever it killed that man is pretty small."

"Yeah, he's right. The marks are getting harder to find in the trees up there, like whatever it was realized it was leaving a trail and moved more carefully. I'm starved."

"Come over! We'll cook for you!" Alice exclaimed, bouncing on her feet.

"No, I'm sure my dad will want me home, and he'll need a good meal after today. You all could come to our house, if you like. We'll have to crowd into the living room, but it can be done!"

"Oh, no. We couldn't impose," Esme replied. "We'll plan something soon, but let's do it another time. Plus, I know Emmett still has homework to finish before tomorrow."

"Mom!" Emmett complained, dragging out the word for a few seconds.

Esme smacked his shoulder playfully. "Oh calm your tits, Emmett." All of our mouths fell open.

Bella began laughing. "Way to steal my phrase, Esme! Feel free to use it any time you like. This is too priceless!" She laughed all the way back to the cars and it was music to my ears. I vowed to make her laugh as often as possible. I wasn't known for being funny, so that would require some effort on my part.

We dropped Bella off at her house and I walked her to her door, to see her safely inside. "Wow, Edward. You certainly are a gentleman. Holding my door open for me, helping me out of the car, walking me to my front door, men don't do this anymore."

"I'm not your average guy," I told her, winking.

She blinked in surprise. "Yes, that's most assuredly true. Um, I'll see you tomorrow?"

I nodded, leaning in to kiss her cheek. "I can't wait." I raised my hand up and carefully brushed the pads of my fingers across her jaw. "See you then." Her pupils dilated a moment and she swayed on her feet. I smiled and turned to walk back to Jasper's Cadillac, hearing the mental hoots and hollers of my family. Now I was really going to get it.

_Eddie and Hell's Bells sittin' in a tree…_ Rose smacked Emmett, stopping his mental singing which was even worse than his normal singing. "Hey, how did you know I was teasing him?" he complained.

"Because you're you," Rosalie explained. Emmett laughed and shrugged, knowing he was predictable in that sense.

Once back at the house, we convened in the rarely used dining room. "What are we going to do about the nomads?" Rosalie asked. "I like it here and I don't want to move. We're already at risk with Bella coming over and being part of our lives, but since she's Edward's mate then I have to understand. But this nomad situation, we should be able to control."

"You're right Rosalie," Carlisle agreed. "We need to handle this. Now that we're not bound by Bella's human speed nor surrounded by the human search team, we should conduct our own search." As if on cue, thunder crackled through the sky and it opened up, heavy drops of rain falling from the grey swirls of clouds. Well, there went the scent trail.

"Not to burst everyone's bubble, but we suck at tracking. Especially with no scent to follow now. I mean we followed that male's scent to the trees, because it was less than a day old, but it was Bella that found which tree he climbed and followed the trail from there. I don't know how she did it, or how she saw that slight depression in the bark, but she's the real tracker. Not us," Jasper offered. "And I think these nomads may have some skills or gifts of their own. The female that led the humans to the lake has an instinct for evasion, I think. At first I thought she was just being careless, leaving an obvious trail for them to follow, but then I realized she did it on purpose, while the two male vampires went in opposite directions.

"The male we were tracking, I think has a gift for tracking. Not so strong as Demetri of the Volturi, but to the point that he knew what to do to throw us off. He knew that humans would never think to look in trees, and he knew that if a vampire was tracking him, his trail was random enough that we never could have made heads or tails of it. Bella was the only thing that got us anywhere out there.

"I hate to say it, but I think we need to wait and see if they attack nearby again. Then we'll know what to look for and they'll be easier to find." _We could even use Bella as bait,_ he thought afterwards. _Whoa. Sorry Edward, just thinking strategy, it just popped in. I don't want her anywhere near the nomads,_ he added before I could lunge for him. I couldn't blame him though, he was right. She smelled amazing to any vampire, especially human hunters, and even more-so to me. And while I didn't know her terribly well, I knew enough to know that she'd jump at the chance to help to the extreme of even throwing her own life into the balance.

"When are you going to tell her what we are?" Esme asked. "Not to push you too fast, but the sooner she knows, the better. If she's friends with the Quileutes, one of them could blurt it out, even by accident. Or she could find out the hard way if one of us slips and shows our strength. I think you'd rather have her fully informed than in the dark, right son?"

I thought for a moment. Wanting nothing more than to have her in my life, knowing everything about me, I resolved to tell her as soon as possible. The setting had to be right though. I couldn't just blurt it out in the middle of a biology lecture. It needed to be well thought out but in a place where she felt safe and could get away quickly if she felt the need. Taking her to my meadow was probably not the best idea; she wouldn't know the area and could feel lost or trapped. Maybe in her house, if she invited me over alone at a time when Charlie was out.

Making the decision, I waited for Alice's vision to tell me if it would work. But the vision didn't come. Or if it did, she was blocking me as only she was so good at. _Sorry Edward, if I show you the future it could alter the future. This time, you'll just have to do it the old fashioned way… hope for the best._

We decided to pass the storm in our big field a few miles away throwing the football back and forth and playing a little baseball. Once Bella was fully informed, I would love to bring her out here so she could join the fun. She'd have to be umpire as the game itself would be a bit too much for her human body, but it'd still be fun.

The hours passed by faster than I expected and soon we were heading back to the house to change for school. I wondered briefly if Bella would appreciate a ride to school, but decided to ask her at school so she had a chance to say no. if I showed up at her house door open, waiting for her, she could feel cornered into saying yes. Or guilted into it. I didn't want her to ever feel like I was putting pressure on her in any way.

It got cold overnight and the rainfall had turned into a thin layer of ice that covered over everything. It was a beautiful sight, but made the roads treacherous if you didn't have the right tires.

Bella arrived moments after we did, and parked "Betsy" safe and sound on the other side of the lot. It looked like she had put chains on her tires due to the ice. Smart girl. She hopped out of the truck and bent down to inspect the back tire, as if to make sure the chains were in place. She stood up and caught my eye across the lot, smiling at me. Did she sense me watching her? Her smile turned into a grimace as she saw the van coming at her. Tyler Crowley had hit the ice going too fast and was skidding right towards her.

_Not her!_ I thought. Before I realized I'd made the decision, I bolted across the lot at top speed, placing myself between Bella and Tyler's rapidly approaching van and let it crash against my shoulder blades. Bella's head was knocked against her truck bed with the force of the blow and she slipped down to the ground, seemingly unconscious.

When I looked at her, though, her eyes were wide open and studying me. She looked from me to the van to the dent in her truck's wheel well and back to me. I expected her to scream, or pass out, or demand to know how I did what I did, but instead she just started laughing. "Of course," she muttered as if what I did was the most obvious thing in the world. She stood up, brushing the asphalt off the back of her pants, and turned to me. "You okay? You um… took a pretty hard hit." She was giggling again.

"I'm fine, Bella. You hit your head though. Are you okay?"

"Hit my head? Oh, yeah." She rubbed the back of her head as if to search for a bump. "I'm peachy. My skull is harder than it looks." She winked at me and slipped under my arm to get out of the small space between her truck and the van. I quickly rearranged the dent in the van to not resemble my shoulders and turned to join her. Before I did, another dent caught my eye. Right where Bella hit her head, there was a rounded dent that the back of her skull would fit perfectly. I knew she didn't hit it hard enough to leave a dent, let alone one like that and not suffer a severe head injury.

When I did join her, everyone in the lot was crowding around us demanding to know if we were alright and calling an ambulance. "We're fine," Bella assured them. "Edward pulled me out of the way just in time, or we'd both be squished. Lucky he was standing so close. The van didn't even touch either of us." She reached out for my hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

What did she see? I wondered. My family was freaking out, wondering if Bella was really okay, how much she saw, how much anyone else saw, the list went on. A few minutes later, the ambulance arrived, demanding that both Bella and I get checked out. I told them who I was and that Dr. Cullen would check us both out personally. Bella seemed relieved at that, and the EMT retreated from her when she glared at him and told him not to touch her.

We rode in the back of the ambulance, sitting on the gurney side by side. I could feel the heat of her body against me and wanted to wrap her up in my arms. We didn't share any words, but Bella had a very pensive expression on her face. After being ushered into separate exam rooms, I waited while Carlisle examined Bella first. She declined an x-ray and assured him that she was fine, that the van didn't even touch her.

When Carlisle came into my room, he gave me a stern but understanding look and asked me what happened. I relayed the truth to him, but left out the part about Bella's head leaving a dent in the side of her truck. He'd insist on an x-ray at that point, I was sure. He mentioned that Bella wanted to speak with me, so I went into her room to see what she wanted.

"Hi Edward," she said, not even looking up to make sure it was me in the room. When she did look up, she gave me a small smile, but it didn't reach her eyes. "I don't know how you did what you did, or why. But thank you. And I want you to know that I won't tell anyone the truth. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, you were standing right next to me and had enough time to pull me out of the way before the van crushed us both."

"You're not going to say anything? To anyone? Aren't you curious about what happened?" I didn't even bother denying that I did something out of the ordinary. I wanted her to know the real me, and lying about it or trying to cover it up wouldn't help in that cause.

She shook her head. "Who would believe me? Besides, it's not my secret to tell." Somehow, I figured she was familiar with that turn of phrase. What other secrets was she keeping? "And of course I'm curious, but I'm not going to pressure you into telling me something you're not ready to say or can't say. I get it, Edward. Your secret, whatever it may be, is safe with me. I promise."

With that, she hopped off the exam table and left the room. An angry Charlie Swan was in the waiting room, glaring at her. She shook her head at him and whispered, "it's not what you think. Just trust me." He seemed assuaged by her words and his face softened. He thanked my father for checking her out and said he was taking her home.

"Can't I go back to school?" she asked.

"I think it best if you came home and rested," he said. "Even if you weren't injured, you've got to be in shock, adrenaline coursing through your system. You might have a crash in the middle of math class." Bella strangely agreed with him and left, waving at me as she went out the door. At the last second, she turned back into the building and quickly stepped to me.

"If you're not going back to school and want to talk today, I'll leave my window open and you can come to my place. Once Charlie goes back to the station, it'll be all clear," she whispered as she hugged me close. "Something tells me you won't have a problem with second story windows." Then she released me, turned and headed out the door without another glance back. I guessed I was going to her house later that morning.

Relaying the information to Carlisle, I waited an appropriate amount of time before heading to Bella's house on foot. I didn't want to risk Charlie still being there and seeing my car pull up outside his house. Thankfully he was gone and sure enough, the window on the 2nd floor was open. I could only assume that it was Bella's. I deftly climbed the tree, hopped over to the window frame, grabbing on before lightly rapping my knuckles against the glass.

Bella was sitting at her desk, a book in her hand, turned away from me. "Come on in, Edward," she invited.

"Okay, here goes nothing," I muttered to myself as I swung into her room.

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In the words of Keenan Thompson, "Aww, here it goes" (Or was that Kel? ... I can't remember. Points to those of you who know what I'm talking about.)

Bella will be hearing Edward out in the next chapter. Will he reveal all or will he simply show her what she is?


	7. Chapter 7

Here it is! The big reveal! - Well, sort of. You'll see ;)

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Chapter 7 Bella PoV

While I waited for Edward to decide whether or not he was coming over, I pondered how to initiate the conversation. Would I lead with the list of observations I'd come up with? Would I let him tell me what he knew? Once he told me about him, if he did, would I do the same courtesy and show him? I hadn't given that courtesy to the wolves, but they hadn't let me in on their secret on purpose. Plus, I kind of felt like I owed it to the Cullens to let them be in on the real me first. I wasn't sure why I felt like I owed them anything at all considering how short of time I knew them, but something told me that they deserved to be fully informed about me. If not right away, then soon enough.

Charlie had simply dropped me off and headed back to the station without a word about what happened. Apparently being sequestered at home instead of able to go back to school was supposed to be some kind of ill-conceived punishment. I didn't even do anything. Edward was the one that acted. I would have ducked out of the way in plenty of time, but his reflexes were faster than mine in that moment. In all reality, it was convenient because it added to my list of observations about the Cullens, but I worried that Edward had exposed himself to the humans. None of them seemed to weirded out, but I couldn't be sure until I spoke to him.

I had my eyes on the pages of a book, but I wasn't reading. My mind was just racing in a million different directions and I could barely focus on one thing at a time. I barely heard the light tapping on my window that signaled Edward was here. Though I would have noticed his presence even without him making it known. The ache that was ever present in his absence completely disappeared when he was near. I figured it had to do with him and not his family as whenever he and I touched, I felt complete. And it scared the shit outta me.

"Come on in, Edward," I stated, without looking up from my book.

"Okay, here goes nothing," he whispered quietly as he entered my room through the window silent as the grave. Capable of being completely silent, another trait I added to my mental list. "Hi Bella," he greeted.

"Please sit down," I said, offering him the rocking chair that sat by the window. "I take it that since you're here, you decided you'd like to talk to me about what happened this morning?"

"Yes, why don't we start with what you saw happen," he replied, giving me the go ahead.

"Well, I had gotten out of my car and was checking the chains on my rear tire. Charlie must have put them on early in the morning. I could have done it myself, but he wants so badly to be that father figure for me that I humor him on many accounts. Anyway, I was thinking about his sweet gesture when I felt someone's eyes on me. Much to my pleasure, when I looked up, it was you. You were walking towards me but were still next to your car. Then I heard the screech of brakes and tires skidding across ice. Tyler's van was coming straight for me, and before I could even calculate what angle to move out of the way, you were there, having run clear across the lot and placing yourself between me and the van, stopping it with your shoulders and protecting me with your arms on either side of me. I banged my head into my truck from the force of the impact, and fell to the ground. You helped me up, I started laughing and then the ambulance came. The rest you know," I explained.

"And you've come to conclusions about this behavior?" he pressed.

"Conclusions? No. But I do have a list of observations. One that I've been collecting since the moment I saw your family at school last Monday. I've chosen not to combine said observations into any kind of conclusion because I'd rather hear the truth from you."

He sighed. "Alright, let's hear it. But then I have a list of my own observations to ask you about."

"Edward, if you're not comfortable telling me, you don't have to. Honestly. It's your life and your secret. If you don't want me to know, I won't ask. I truly don't _need_ to know, and whatever it is won't affect how I feel about you and your family."

"You can't know that," he replied.

"Oh, try me," I challenged. "Now for my observations. Your eyes were black as night when I first saw you. The next day they were golden yellow. Well, perhaps yours weren't, but you weren't there. I did see yours turn so black that they nearly took over your entire eye. Your skin is pale as a sheet, cold as ice and hard as stone. You don't have a heartbeat. You each have your own scent that is altogether inhuman. You're incredibly fast and strong. You can move completely silently and appear to have super-sonic hearing. Am I getting anything wrong?"

"No," he replied, simply. "Anything else?"

"That about sums it up. Oh, the Quileutes seem to hate you, but they wouldn't tell me why. I didn't ask them to, but before I even could have, one of them shot the others down and said it wasn't their secret to tell."

"You haven't come up with any conclusions with that rather extensive list of characteristics?"

"Well, the one that stands out the most is the lack of a heartbeat. You don't appear to be a jellyfish or coral. You also can't be unicellular. Those are the only creatures on the planet that don't have a heart organ. Every single other creature no matter how big or small has a beating heart, and needs it to survive. There aren't any known creatures that look like you that don't need a heart.

"Now if we dive into the realm of the unknown, science fiction, or mythology, there is a short list. Aliens, because while it's likely there is life on other planets, we haven't proven it yet, so that's the unknown. Zombies, which I immediately dismiss because you're not rabid brain hungry monsters with no conscience or self-awareness. I'm only going off of what we see in movies of course. Genetically mutated humans, which is a lot more likely than one might think. But that one doesn't explain the no heartbeat thing. Science hasn't leapt that far yet… I would know. And last but not least… vampires." As the word fell from my lips, I knew my last suggestion to be the truth. Everything suddenly came together and made perfect sense.

"You _are_ a vampire," I stated. "And the man that was killed in that steel mill was killed by vampires."

"I'm glad I didn't have to say it out loud," he murmured.

I was confused. "Do you hate what you are?"

"Of course I do!" He shouted, standing up from the chair and causing to rock uncontrollably. He reached down to stop it before speaking again. "I'm an inhuman soulless bloodthirsty monster, Bella. I don't age. I can't ever change. How can I like what I am? Especially now that I've found you."

"Me? What do I have to do with anything?" I asked, even more confused. He had no idea about me. None, whatsoever. I had to keep that in mind.

"You're human, Bella. You may be able to do some extraordinary things like track a vampire better than me, but you're still human. I'll forever look like this while you can move forward, change, grow up. You have your whole life ahead of you, and for me to hold you back would be the most selfish thing I could ever do."

I sat silent for a moment, organizing my thoughts before responding to him. "And this is only your decision? What about what I want?"

"You couldn't want this, Bella. You couldn't want me. I'm a monster. I've killed people!"

Before I could let that thought sink in, I had to ask a follow up question. "Are you still killing people?" I asked.

"Well, no, but I used to." _Used to. Past tense. Not current tense. Besides, even if he does still kill people, he's a vampire. It's what they do,_ I rationalized.

"If you don't kill people, then what do you live on, donated blood?" I asked, simply curious.

"Ew, no. that stuff has so many anti-coagulants, fillers, and preservatives in it, you can hardly call it blood. No, we drink animal blood. Right from the source."

"Well, that hardly makes you different than humans. Humans eat the meat, while you drink the blood. It's really not that far a stretch, Edward. You seem surprised that I'm so calm," I said, gauging his expression.

"I've gone over this conversation a thousand and twenty six times in my head before coming over here. In every single scenario I could conceive, you ran away screaming or were so disgusted that you wanted nothing to do with me. I could not possibly believe that you'd accept what I am. Not under any circumstance. Yet, here you are, taking it in as if I've simply told you I'm catholic or something."

"Well then, I might have to run and scream," I joked, hoping to lighten the mood. He chuckled lightly. "Look, Edward. I can't explain what I'm feeling, and I barely have a grasp on my thoughts about you, but I can tell that you're very important to me. In what capacity I haven't figured out yet, but I do know that now that we've met, I don't ever want to let you go."

He leapt up from the chair again and pulled me from my own seat and into his arms. Holding me close, he let his arms wrap around my waist and squeeze. I sighed in contentment, but he must have taken my reaction wrong because he immediately pulled away and was on the other side of the room in the blink of an eye. "I'm sorry! I squeezed you too tight! I have to be so careful; I can't ever lose control with you. It's so dangerous for me to even touch you, Bella."

"Okay, we have to stop that thought process right there. Come back here," I demanded. "First of all, it was a sigh of contentment, not an exhale of pain like you held me too tight. In fact, you could have held me tighter and all it would have done was made me happier." He looked at me confused, but slowly made his way back to my side.

I lifted his hands from his sides and held them open so I could step into his embrace again. I wrapped his arms around me and then moved my own to wrap around his neck. "I'll tell you if you hurt me Edward. You can squeeze now." I held his gaze as he hesitated for a minute before slowly tightening his grip on me. I had to encourage him to squeeze tighter a few times as he was so worried about hurting me. At no point did I feel pain and soon he was holding me as tight as his vampire strength would allow him to. Or at least that was what he told me.

I saw his gaze flicker from my eyes to my lips and back again. Did he want to kiss me? There was nothing in the world that I wanted more than for him to press his lips to mine, but I wanted him to know about me first. He deserved my honesty. He was holding me so tight that I had to forcefully remove myself from his arms to get the space I needed. My strength surprised him, but he didn't ask about it.

"Do I get to know your history?" I asked. "Like about how you became a vampire, how old you are, et cetera?"

"Carlisle created me," he answered after collecting his thoughts for a moment. "It was nineteen-eighteen and I was dying of the Spanish influenza in my hometown of Chicago." I remembered that the disease had killed over 50 million people. If only I'd been around back then, I could have saved so many with a single drop of my own blood. "He had been lonely, living alone for over two centuries. When my mother begged him to save me in the way that only he could, he knew that she suspected what he was, or at least some version of it. He changed me and carried me all the way to a cabin in the woods outside of the city. Far enough away that humans wouldn't hear me scream in pain or be close enough for me to smell when I woke up. Newborn vampires are very single minded, thinking of nothing but the next meal.

"A few years later, he found Esme. She'd fallen and broken nearly every bone in her body. She was already in the morgue though still alive at the time. Carlisle changed her and they became mates. Then came Rosalie and Emmett. Alice and Jasper joined us later, they weren't created by Carlisle.

"So how old were you when you were changed?" I asked. He told me he was seventeen. "That makes you a hundred and eight, then. And Carlisle must be over three hundred. Wow. That's incredible."

"What are you?" he asked. Finally, he frickin' asked me.

I found that I actually wanted him to know, which surprised the hell out of me. It wasn't just that he deserved the truth or that I felt I owed it to him, I truly wanted him to know all about me. About everything I was and everything I had ever done. The good and the bad all together. "I appear at first glance to be human, but I'm not. If you haven't already guessed, Charlie is not my biological father. We conveniently look a little alike, which helps with the façade, but we're not related at all. He's saved my life more than once and helped me in more ways than I can count."

"How can you not be human?" he asked. Did he not know about the wolves in La Push? They certainly knew about his kind. Did he really thing vampires were the only non-human creatures around? I tabled that thought for later. Clearly he had some major self-loathing issues going on.

"There are several ways I can be not human, and in fact, I already told you the answer. Think about the list of options I gave for non-animal humanoid beings. Which one do you think I am?"

He sat thoughtfully for a moment, leaning forward and resting his head on his fist. He looked more like_ The Thinker_ than anyone had a right to. "Well you're not a zombie, for the same reasons that I'm not. You're not a vampire, since you do have a pulse and I've seen you eat human food. That leaves alien or genetically mutated human. This has me thinking of comic book characters, Bella. I feel silly."

"Silly, but on the right track," I told him. "Would you rather I told you or showed you what I am?" I asked.

"Do you want to tell only me? Or do you want the rest of the family to know as well?" he asked. "I only ask so that you don't have to tell your story more than once."

"That's actually not a bad idea. Um, can we go to your place? We can wait there until the others come home from school, maybe?" I asked. He agreed and we headed down the stairs and out the door. I looked around and didn't see his car.

"I ran here," he explained. I guess your truck is still at school. I can give you a piggy back ride to my house, if you like." As appealing as that idea was, I decided to show him a bit about me instead.

"Or I could… race you!" I took off like a shot through the trees towards the general direction of his house. He hesitated a second but had soon caught up to me and was gaining distance in front of me. Damn he was fast. Faster than me, which I had never seen before. They didn't even make cars that were as fast as me.

Within minutes we arrived at his house and his mother was standing on the porch watching us with a shocked expression on her face. "Bella did you… were you just running? With… Edward?"

"Yes Esme, evidently she's not human," Edward explained. "But she wants to save the story for when we're all home. Bella, would you like to come in?" I nodded and took his offered hand as he pulled me into the house. Esme was quick behind us asking Edward if I knew what they were. She was speaking in a very low voice that an average human wouldn't have been able to hear.

"Esme, I was sorry to hear about your fall," I said, answering her question. "But I'm so glad Carlisle saved you. You're one of the bright lights in this world, and it's all the better for you still being in it." Her eyes glistened as if she was about to cry, but the tears never fell. She stepped forward and pulled me into a gentle hug. I squeezed her back, showing her that she didn't have to treat me like a priceless piece of china.

"Carlisle took a half day today, so he'll be home soon. And then the others will be back by three," Esme said. "Bella, can I get you anything? You must know now that we don't actually eat a gluten free diet, but we have stocked human food here."

"All for me?" I asked when I saw how full the refrigerator and pantries were.

"Well yes and no," Esme replied. "We have to keep up human appearances so I have to be seen at the market every now and then buying groceries for my growing teenagers, so we always have some things here that I keep for a while before donating to a food shelf across the state. But recently, most of what we have was bought with you in mind."

"Well I haven't had lunch yet, and after the run just now, I'm getting a bit hungry," I admitted.

"How about a sandwich and a glass of milk?" Esme offered, moving to get the items out. I went to protest, saying I could make it myself and she didn't need to go out of her way, but she shooed me out of the kitchen rather forcefully and said it was her pleasure.

Well, who was I to look a gift sandwich in the mouth? I left the kitchen and went into the dining room to sit with Edward. "Are there ever times when you do have to eat human food?" I asked. "Times when you can't get away with hiding it in your napkin or throwing it into nearby plants trash cans?" He looked at me like I had turned orange with green pokadots. "Yes, I noticed."

Esme appeared a moment later with a plate that was filled with a six-inch sub style sandwich that had turkey, ham, salami, roast beef, muenster and Colby jack cheeses, lettuce, tomatoes and mayo. Next to it was a half a bag of kettle chips, a gigantic pickle, and a pound of fresh fruit. A smaller plate was piled high with Oreos and chocolate chip cookies. She then placed the largest glass of milk I'd ever seen. It was a good thing I had to eat a lot normally, there was no way a normal human woman my size could put away this much food.

"Wow Esme, this looks incredible. Thank you!" I told her. I decided not to crush her ideas of portion control just yet. I'd save that for another time if there was ever a normal human she had to make a meal for. This was the perfect portion size for me, though.

"Um, we have on occasion had to chew and swallow human food," Edward explained, eying the mountain of food in front of me. He casually grabbed a chip, tossed it in his mouth, chewed and swallowed quickly. He looked like he was in pain the entire time.

"I'm not from Missouri, Edward you didn't have to show me," I joked. "Now what happens to it?"

"It comes out the same way it went in," Esme explained, taking a seat next to me. Edward excused himself to apparently go expel the offensive potato product from his stomach. "Probably the first time the toilet has ever been used apart from when I clean it." They never had to use the restroom? I didn't know why that surprised me more than anything else.

"So the blood, it gets absorbed into your tissues, then?" I guessed.

"That's exactly right," I heard Carlisle's voice say as he entered the dining room. He walked to Esme, bent down and kissed her forehead, followed by her lips. There was so much love shared between them it was palpable in the room. Anyone who said vampires were soulless bloodthirsty monsters needed to be shot. Apparently I had to find a gun and shoot Edward, because that's what he thought about himself.

Edward returned then, and resumed his seat next to me. I decided to eat my lunch then so I wasn't still eating when the others got back. "I'm fast, too," I said, more for Carlisle's benefit than anyone else. Within two minutes, I'd inhaled every morsel of food on my plates, finishing off by chugging the milk. All three of them gaped at me.

Laughing, I stood up, carried my dishes to the kitchen and washed them before Esme could even protest. They were resting in the drying rack when she entered, her mouth open to tell me not to do what I had just done. "Too late," I teased. She laughed, her voice like a tinkling bell.

The four of us retreated to the sitting room to wait out the rest of the family. It was awkwardly silent, but I didn't know what to say to break the ice. It was like we were strangers all over again. Why was it when we were in the dining room, everything was fine, we were comfortable even, and now the atmosphere is charged with this unresolved tension? I couldn't place it.

Edward then grabbed me off the sofa, threw me over his shoulder and carried me up the stairs. "Edward! What the hell are you doing?!" I hollered.

"There was far too much tension in that room. I needed to break it somehow," he explained once he set me down. I looked around the room and didn't recognize it. It must have been his bedroom. There was no bed, I noticed. Only a very inviting chaise lounge and more music than I had ever seen outside a record store. "This is my room."

"There's no bed," I said, pointing out the obvious.

He chuckled lightly. "Contrary to popular belief, we don't sleep. Not in coffins, not upside down, not anywhere, not ever," he replied.

"Doesn't that get terribly boring?" I asked. "Having 33% more time to be awake every day?"

"Well, mated couples find ways to occupy their time most nights," he answered. I immediately blushed, realizing what he was talking about. He reached out and touched my heated cheek. "Your blush is my second favorite thing in the world, preceded only by your laughter and followed by your scent and the musical sound of your heartbeat."

I froze; I couldn't breathe. How could he feel that strongly for me? We'd known each other only a week, and four of those days he was MIA. Closing the distance between us, he wrapped his arms around my waist, my own wrapping around his neck automatically. With one hand, he reached out and pressed a button on his CD player and the beautiful sounds of Debussy filled the room.

"Claire de Lune is one of my favorites," I commented, recognizing the piece. He smiled widely and pulled me closer. I rested my head against his silent chest and swayed with him. He twirled me around, dipped me low and moved around the room with me in his arms as if I was an extension of his own body. I didn't even have to consciously let him lead, it was just a natural thing.

"You're a wonderful dancer," he told me. I blushed again.

"You're an excellent leader." He pulled me close again and we stopped as the music faded. We were lost in each other's eyes. I noticed at this closeness, his eyes weren't just golden. They were so many facets of amber, sunshine, gold, yellow, bronze, copper, maize, and jonquil. As we gazed at each other, his eyes seemed to darken ever so slightly the longer we stared.

"Bella," he whispered. I could feel his cool breath on my lips. I wanted nothing more than to close that last gap of distance between us and press my lips to his. But I wouldn't make the first move, not in this area. That had to come from him. All I would do is give as obvious of hints as possible that I wanted him to. His hands roamed my back and settled on my hips, squeezing gently. I hummed in pleasure and my eyes fluttered closed. Who knew him touching my hips would be such a turn-on?

I could feel his lips were just a hair's breadth away from mine. My eyes were still closed, but I could tell he was waiting for permission. I gave him a tiny nod and before I could even think my next thought, his cool lips were on mine. I knotted my fingers into his hair and pulled him impossibly closer. He gripped my hips tightly, groaning as I pulled on his hair.

The next thing I knew, I was laying on the chaise lounge with him hovering above me, raining kisses along my jaw and down my neck. "Oh Edward," I moaned. And then I was alone. I no longer felt the weight of him on top of me. Opening my eyes, I looked around the room and he simply wasn't there. The door was still closed. Where the hell did he go?

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Uh Oh, Edward did his signature pull away in terror again... where did he run off to? Bella will describe what she is to the family in the next chapter... after she finds Edward and drags his sparkly ass back to his room ;)

Thank you for reading and for reviewing!


	8. Chapter 8

For those of you that were expecting to hear Bella's story in the last chapter, I'm sorry I disappointed you. It got to be too much in one chapter to have the vampire story and Bella's story all in one. I chose to have her reveal some traits about herself here and there rather than tell her whole story right away. It's coming up right here, right now, though.

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Chapter 8 Edward PoV

"Edward!" I heard her whisper-shout.

"I'm down here," I answered. Following my voice, she looked out, realizing the window that made up the wall was open. She jumped from the window, which had my dead heart leaping into my throat. Landing agilely on the ground a few yards away, she slowly walked towards me a frustrated and confused expression on her face. "God, Bella I'm so sorry."

"Sorry for what?" She asked, folding her arms across her chest. "Sorry for kissing me or sorry for running?"

"Both, I guess… I should have had more control. I shouldn't have taken advantage of that. It was reprehensible of me to treat you that way."

She rolled her eyes at me. "There you go, using that word again. It's not nineteen-eighteen anymore Edward. I'm a grown woman and capable of making my own choices. If I didn't want you to kiss me and didn't want you to lay me down on the sofa then I could have gotten away from you. You know that I'm strong enough."

I shook my head. "I know you could have. But you should never have to. I should just know my boundaries and stay within them."

"Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound?" she asked. "You expect to just know when I've met my limit. That's not possible unless you could read my mind. Your boundaries are not necessarily my boundaries. We should discuss what they are and decide together how to go about keeping them and when to expand them. And even if you could read my mind, I'd rather you still talked it out with me. It's much better to talk things out than to just make the decision on your own without including me in it.

"We kissed, Edward. It was beautiful and passionate and felt so amazing, but that's all it was. Kissing. We're in no way ready for anything more than that, and had you tried to take it further, I would have stopped you. Even if you still think you're stronger than me, there are other things I could have done to get you to stop. Trust me."

"I should be able to read your mind," I said quietly.

"What?"

Taking a deep breath, I prepared for the long answer to her very short question. "Some vampires wake up with extra abilities. Apart from the super hearing, speed and strength, some of us have other gifts. Jasper for instance, can read the emotions in a room full of people and manipulate them. He could make a tragic funeral a hopping party by tweaking the emotional climate a bit. Not that he would, of course, but he has the ability.

"Alice can see the future. Her visions are based on decisions people make though. If she saw me decide to wear a green shirt with brown pants, she'd see and likely intervene. She has something against green and brown together, though I don't know what. But she's a master at the stock exchange, so we have an endless amount of capital at our disposal. And I… I can read minds. In my near century of being immortal, I've never come across anyone, human, vampire, or otherwise that I couldn't read. Until you."

She pursed her lips and hummed in thought. "I think I know why your telepathy doesn't work on me," she replied almost in a whisper. "But can we save that for when the others get here? It should be any time now." I nodded and led her to the back door of the house. Esme and Carlisle were still in the living room, a secret smile on each of their faces. They realized I had just had my first kiss and were very happy for me.

"Go Eddie!" Emmett hollered as he bounded through the door. "And it wasn't even in a tree, I'm touched!" Bella look confused. "Bella and Edward sittin' in a tree," he quipped. She rolled her eyes and threw a pillow at him. She threw it so fast, he didn't have time to react and it hit him square in the forehead. The pillow dropped to the floor with a soft thud revealing a very shocked and confused Emmett. "How did you do that?!"

"I'd like to tell my story to everyone at once," Bella declared. One by one the rest of the family filed into the house and all took their seats in the living room. Bella stood up, staying by my side and grabbed my hand for reassurance.

"Go ahead dear," Esme encouraged. "We all support you and care for you no matter what you say." I listened to the thoughts of my family and they were all curious, but had decided that no matter what Bella said, she would be part of the family. That made me smile. Emmett was the most curious at all, after seeing her swing through the trees like a monkey and track a tracker; he thought she was wonder-woman or a female superman.

Bella nodded and thanked Esme for her kind words. Taking a deep breath, she began. "When Charlie and I first met, I was being tested. I was a human lab-rat being put through the wringer with every kind of test known to man. Poisoned, drowned, stabbed, shot, electrocuted, set on fire, bitten by venomous animals, you name it; they did it to me, all without my even knowing it. If it was a way to kill someone, they tried it on me. I was unconscious, locked inside a glass tank for the first seventeen years of my life. I wasn't born, I was grown. Like bacteria in a Petri dish.

"Charlie was working night security at this lab while he was putting himself through the police academy. When an alarm went off in my 'room' he came to check it out. It was then when he learned that the test subjects that he was told about weren't mice, rats, and the occasional monkey. They were humans. Though where one draws the line on what's acceptable to test and what isn't I'll never understand, but I digress.

"He found out exactly what they were doing to me and disconnected all the wires and tubes that were going into my tank. Removing the sedative was what woke me up, naturally. I woke in a panic, banging against the glass of my tank and before long, breaking through it. For all intents and purposes, I was a newborn. I couldn't talk, couldn't understand language, could barely walk as my muscles had never really been used, and Charlie had to help me. The first thing I remember feeling about him was trust."

She paused for a moment, letting us take in everything she was saying and offering a chance to ask questions if we wanted. "I do have one question," Jasper said. "Apart from them killing you in every way imaginable and you still being alive, Chief Swan was in the police academy when he graduated high school, which was about eighteen years ago. That's a two year school, so he couldn't have known you less than sixteen years ago, if what you're saying is true. You said that you were in that tank for seventeen years before Charlie helped you break out. So seventeen plus sixteen is thirty-three, yet you don't look a day over seventeen now. Can you explain that?"

"I don't age," she replied. "Much like you all don't. Hell, it could be vampire DNA that I was given that made me immortal, I have no idea. From the day I woke up and broke out of that tank, I haven't aged at all. I've learned that I can do incredible things, things that normal humans cannot do. It's like the pages out of a comic book. I'm a mutant, basically, but unlike the XMEN stories, I wasn't born this way. I was made.

"They created me in a lab from an embryo, altering my DNA to give me more control over my brain and make my body impervious to any threat. The Company that created me no longer exists, so there's no one around that I can ask about the details. I destroyed everything about the Company when they killed my family.

"When Charlie helped me escape, he found a family to take me in. He still had no idea what I was nor what I was truly capable of. As soon as I escaped, the Company came after me. Charlie helped keep me off the radar for a long time, but eventually they found me. I was lured away from my house and they came in and killed everyone, even the dog. I suppose they thought that with no where left to go, I'd come back to them, thinking it was the only home I had left.

"But that place wasn't home. It was hell. I had nothing left, so there was nothing to lose. Thankfully, they didn't know about Charlie and I kept him out of the loop of my plans. He would have stopped me for sure. After everything about the Company was destroyed, I fell into a deep depression. I'd taken lives; four hundred and sixty two of them, to be exact. I deserved to die, to be put in prison, anything but walking around free. With no evidence of the murders, there was no way to convict me. 'No body, no crime.' I was all alone, and didn't dare tell Charlie what I'd done nor where I was. I tried to find numbness, turning to drugs and alcohol, but nothing worked. My body metabolized the alcohol and narcotics long before they could have any effect on me.

"Charlie found me after a couple months of searching for me, and brought me here. He got fake papers that show I'm his daughter and took me in, no questions asked. I did finally tell him what happened and he said that the cop in him told him it was wrong, but the father figure in him would have done the exact same thing. He never judged me for it, never even brought it up again. I'll be forever grateful to him. He saved my life more times than I can count, and he truly is my Dad, even if not biologically."

"So what all can you do?" Emmett asked, not even waiting a moment for us to take in the fact that she basically just told us that she murdered an entire business' worth of human beings in cold blood.

"Well, Emmett, as you witnessed yesterday, I'm rather agile, especially when it comes to trees. I'm strong… very strong. And fast, though Edward is apparently faster than me, which was a first. I have super-sonic hearing and can see better than an eagle. I can heal very fast, and like I said before, I don't age. My body is bullet-proof, flame-proof, I can breathe under water, and I'm resistant to poisons and venoms. Basically I have what I call 'auto-evolution.' Whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger, literally. My body evolves to be immune to whatever attacked it. Which is why the company put me through so many experiments. I was poisoned with every deadly chemical and venom known to man and I survived every single one of them. I only know this because I saw the notes."

Carlisle was wondering if she was immune to our venom, and if she could be changed. He went on to think that if she doesn't age, then she wouldn't need to be changed anyway, and the fact that she wasn't technically human, she didn't fall under the Volturi law. After his mental monologue was done, he turned to me and offered a reassuring smile.

"You mentioned earlier that you thought you knew why I can't read your thoughts," I offered.

"Yes, I can't be sure of course, because there weren't even any notes about it, but I'm telepathic and telekinetic. According to the notes, the only alterations they put into my DNA was auto-evolution, spontaneous regeneration, and the ability to control my entire brain. From there my body simply acquired these extra powers. They say that humans on average use only ten percent of their brain's capacity at any given time. And many scientists have asked, 'what if we could use more?' Well, I'm the answer. I'm what happens when you can use more. I theorize that because I have more control, that it gives me the telekinetic and telepathic abilities. There were no notes about those skills when I read through the research. They didn't know I even had those abilities.

"So, to make a long story longer, the reason I think you can't read my thoughts is because I, too, can read thoughts. I haven't tried, but I doubt I'd be able to read yours, either. The reason I think this to be true is because it'd be like a room full of mirrors all facing each other, reflecting an endless amount of the same image over and over again. If I can hear everyone's thoughts, and you, a fellow telepath could read my mind, you'd also be hearing everyone's thoughts through your normal way and duplicated through my mind. And then I'd be hearing everyone's thoughts through my normal way and through your mind. But it would build, because I would be able to hear you hearing me, and vice versa. It would be a veritable mess of thoughts. I think there's a natural defense built in that negates that option from happening."

"That's a very sound theory," Carlisle mentioned. "You said you haven't tried to read Edward's mind. You can turn off the ability?"

"Yes," I replied. "I have to decide to listen to someone's thoughts in order to hear them. You can't?"

I shook my head. "I always hear everyone's thoughts all the time."

Bella sat down next to me and grasped my hands in hers. "I'm so sorry Edward. That has to be exhausting."

"I learn to tune it out, but there's always a din of thoughts that I can hear all around me." She reached up and caressed my cheek.

"Am I right in assuming that you two are an item now?" Rosalie asked.

"Yes, that's right," Bella answered. "I know he's very important to me, and I can tell now that it's a romantic feeling that I have for him. This is very new to me, but my feelings are very strong." I reached over to her and pulled her into my arms.

"You're really immortal?" Emmett asked. "We can keep you forever?"

Bella laughed. "I'm not a pet, Emmett. But yeah, I'd wager than I'm harder to kill than you are."

"Bull shit," Emmett declared. Esme smacked him for his foul language. "Prove it, short stop."

"Alright," Bella agreed, standing up, releasing my arms around her. "Outside… I don't want to break anything in here." Emmett grinned and followed her out the back door and into the yard. "Esme, are there any trees that you're partial too?" Bella asked. Esme pointed out the ones she liked and then a few that were dead or dying. Bella then leaned close to me and whispered lowly, "I'm guessing that since your bodies are so hard that you're impenetrable to wood, right?" I nodded, confirming her guess.

"Okay, short stop, let's see what you got that I ain't got," Emmett challenged, flexing his muscles and grinning like a crazy person.

"This," Bella replied with a flick of her wrist. Instantly, the trees that Esme said she didn't like were uprooted from the ground and sailing through the air directly at Emmett's head. He had enough time to mutter, "What the f—" before they hit him, knocking him off his feet with the force. The wood splintered into a thousand pieces, some the size of fire logs, others smaller. "Honestly Emmett," Bella teased. "That's the second time today I've thrown something at you. You'd think you'd learn to duck."

She then used her telekinesis to lift all the wood that had splintered and shattered around Emmett and arranged it into a tee-pee style bon-fire. Holding her fist out towards the pile, she turned and stared at Emmett. Looking through Emmett's mind, I got a look at her eyes. They went from chocolate brown to burnt sienna, to amber, golden, orange, and finally red. She looked like a newborn vampire with glowing red eyes! In the next moment, she opened her palm and it burst into flames! She concentrated the flames into a fireball and threw it at the pile, watching as the wood went up and burned hot.

"Now, if you can do that, then we'll talk," she said, wiping one hand on the other and walking away. Emmett stood still, awestruck, staring at the bonfire. "Esme, I don't suppose you have s'more ingredients inside, do you?"

"Some more what?" Esme asked, furrowing her brown in confusion. Bella burst out laughing, wrapping her arm around Esme's waist, they went back inside together.

"You're killin' me Smalls!" Bella quipped before showing Esme what s'more ingredients are, and where she got that quote from. Esme made a mental note to watch the movie so she understood Bella better. She already thought of her as a daughter and part of the family. It warmed my heart.

Bella found a long stick and skewered a pair of mallows with it. She had me hold the graham crackers and chocolate while she went to roast her mallows. Emmett was still staring at the fire. Rosalie was trying to get his attention, but he wouldn't move. Concerned, Bella threw her whole stick in the fire and went over to him. "Did I break him?" she asked.

"He's just in shock," Carlisle answered after giving Emmett the once over. "It's not every day that he's bested by a super-human." Emmett's mind cleared at that moment and he came back to the present.

"Bet I'm stronger," Emmett challenged. "Arm wrestling?"

"You're on," Bella agreed. Emmett led her over to a boulder on the opposite end of the property from where tree-gate happened. "Who's going to referee?"

"I will," Jasper offered. "I can't see the outcome, read the thoughts, and have no romantic affiliation with either of you. Sorry Emmett." Emmett glared at Jasper, but the rest of us just laughed.

Bella put her right arm up, wrapping her left one around her back. Emmett did the same, and they gripped hands. Jasper counted them down and soon they were struggling to make the other topple. I could tell that Bella was fighting the urge to use her other abilities apart from just strength. But Emmett was struggling, too. More than he ever had when arm wrestling anyone else.

He did get the upper hand though, Bella was losing her strength and he overpowered her, slamming her hand into the boulder. I worried she was hurt because she shook her hand as if to rid itself from the pain, but then grinned at Emmett. "Man, first Edward is faster than me and kisses me, and now you're stronger. It's a day of firsts for me."

"That was your first kiss?" I asked, surprised. She blushed and nodded at me. "It was mine, too." The smile that lit up her face was enough to tell me I could then die a happy man.

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So? What's the consensus? Are you happy about what Bella is? Surprised? Wish she was something different? I'd love to hear your opinion and what you think of the story so far.

No cliffie this time, I'm normally not one to leave ones, but since I kind of did last chapter, I made sure this one ended on a nice note. The Pack will be making a reappearance in the next chapter... as well as the Nomads... Dun, dun duuunnnnn!


	9. Chapter 9

Someone was slightly disappointed that I didn't have Bella be stronger than Emmett. I didn't want her to be all-powerful. I ran into that problem with my characters from my original novel. If you read my story Bellatrix, the super-human type beings are a lot more powerful than vampires and it's kinda gotten away from me. I'd rather they have some flaws and some areas where they're not completely overpowering. Also, someone mentioned the presence that Bella sensed in her bedroom and who it was… it wasn't Edward, which I'm sure was the general thought. It wasn't any vampire actually, or a human, or a werewolf… so what was it?

Chapter 9 Bella PoV

When Edward told me I was his first kiss, too, I was both ecstatic and surprised. He had been alive for over a century and had never kissed anyone before? He sure knew what he was doing. Then again, being able to hear everyone's thoughts around him probably gave him as close to first hand experience as one can get when it comes to how to make out with a girl.

Before I could give him a response, my phone rang in my pocket. "Charlie?" I answered. He almost never called me.

"Bells, there's been another killing," he told me. "This time right outside Hallam. Guy was found on his fishing boat. It looks to be the same as the last one. I think… I think we're going to need _your_ skills on this one, honey. Can you do that for me?"

"I'd do anything for you, Charlie. You know that." I made plans to meet him at the crime scene. So far only he and the man who called in the crime had seen it. He hadn't even called in the forensic team yet. "I want you all to come with me," I said, addressing the Cullens. "But Charlie can't see you. He needs to think I'm working the scene on my own, but we'll have you all in the trees or something. Once he lets me off on my own, which he will, I'll bring you down and you can help.

"I want these nomads found and taken care of," I continue. "Is there some kind of vampire etiquette or rules that need to be followed?"

"Well, vampires that kill injudiciously or expose themselves to the humans are to be executed, usually by the Volturi. They are the ruling class of the vampire world. Their job is to uphold the one law we have, keep the secret," Carlisle explained.

"So… _I _know the secret. What does that mean for you?" I asked, knowing it would have no physical effect on me. They could try to kill me, but it wouldn't work. I wasn't sure even vampire venom would kill me or even change me. But if the Volturi killed the Cullens because I knew about them, that would damn near destroy me.

"We've talked about it," Carlisle answered. "We believe that since you're neither human nor vampire then you technically don't fall under Volturi law. I think that point could be argued rather well, should it come to that."

"Let's hope it doesn't," I said, getting up from my seat. "I'm going to head down there. You all follow at least a mile behind me. Once I give the all clear, you can come out of hiding and help me search. It looks to me that the nomads are getting careless, or they want to be found, one of the two. We should be prepared for any and all possibilities."

With that, I planted a searing kiss on Edward's lips and bolted out the door. I heard them following behind me a few seconds later. "Bella wait up!" I heard Alice call out. I slowed down and let her catch up to me. "I had a vision," she explained.

"If we go to where we play baseball during a thunderstorm and play, they'll hear us. They'll be curious and come to see what we're all about. Our lifestyle will intrigue one of them," she said, her eyes unfocused as she looks at her vision rather than at me. "After that, my vision blanks out… I guess you get involved at that point. I have a hard time seeing you."

"Your visions are based on people's decisions, right?" I asked. She nodded. "Well, maybe because I run on instinct a lot," I guessed. "If it's an instinct, it's not a legit decision, right? I'm guessing that I'll be attacking these nomads, though. If I know myself, I know that I won't be able to stand for them taking innocent lives; especially in the torturous manner they're doing so. I get that vampires need blood to survive, but there are ways of doing it that aren't so heinous.

"Even apart from what you all choose to do; there are other ways of getting blood that don't result in what these nomads are doing. Hunting and killing innocents, I cannot condone, regardless of the species. I'm not built that way. I believe I was created to save lives; it's in my DNA to do so. But if a vampire hunted merely on the dregs of society for instance; killing the murderers, rapists and child molesters of the world, that would make sense to me. It's what I do, so why would I fault another for doing the same thing as me. I just don't like to drink them at the end."

Edward let out an audible sigh of relief at the end of my rant. I'd have to ask him about that later. "Okay, so what's the plan then, Pixie?" I asked Alice. "Should we go trace their scent first or do I meet up with Charlie under the ruse that I'm going to follow their trail and then head towards your baseball field?"

Alice's eyes turned cloudy as she had another vision. "It's like Jasper said. One of them has a knack for evasion. Like he or she can sense a threat coming at them. If we follow their trail again, she'll sense us coming and bolt. But then they'll come back and kill again, because their leader doesn't want to ever run away from something. He likes to face the threat head on. I think that's their tracker.

"If we don't go follow their trail, they'll hear the baseball game and come find us, walking right into our trap. It seems as though the female can sense the threat, but not whether said threat is human or vampire. They must not know that the very vampires that are tracking them are the ones they're curious about. And apparently, a baseball game doesn't tell her any danger is near, or the curiosity is overpowering her gift."

"Okay, so I'll go meet Charlie alone, tell him some bullshit about needing to follow the trails alone with no interference and come meet you all. Where's this baseball field of yours?"

"Wait, how do you know we play in a field?" Emmett asked.

"Well, I hardly expected you to play baseball in a forest. That would have to be a challenge even for vampires. So I figure there must be a field or a clearing somewhere in the vicinity big enough to play baseball, right? Or do you play in the forest? Or on a cliff face, maybe?"

"It's a field, love," Edward answered. He just called me love. Holy crap. I had to think for a moment on that one. I knew that he was born in 1901 and perhaps it was a common term of endearment back then. It was still used in England, so that wasn't all that much of a stretch. Maybe he watched a lot of shows on the BBC, or maybe…. Maybe he loved me.

"Okay, so does someone have the coordinates to the field? And why do you only play during a thunderstorm?" I asked, deciding to table the thoughts about love for a later time. Jasper pulled up the location on his phone and gave me the latitude and longitude, telling me I'd find out the need for thunder when the game began. Perfect, that was all I needed. "Awesome. I'll meet you all there in… an hour?" Carlisle nodded in agreement. I pecked Edward on the lips quickly and dashed off to the crime scene.

Charlie was there, waiting for me alone. Good, I didn't want to have to deal with his crime scene people messing everything up. As I approached, he gave me a tight lipped smile and pointed to the body. "It's pretty gruesome, Bells," he said. _Even worse than the last one_, I wondered.

A quick glance at the scene, and one could hardly tell it used to be a human. The body had been torn apart and ripped up, as if by Wolverine himself. Apart from the spatter on the sides of the boat, there wasn't a drop of blood to be found. The body was completely devoid of it. Looking at the marks on it, I knew it was vampires. And remembering the scene from the last attack, the teeth marks matched exactly. Back then, I didn't know vampires existed. So much had changed in only a few days.

"How many people know about this, Charlie?" I asked.

"Just me, the dispatch that took the call, and the gal that called it in," he answered. That guy seems to have disappeared though. "Makes me wonder if it wasn't the doer that called, y'know?"

"Did you listen to the call? What did she sound like?" I asked. Charlie pulled out his phone where he'd had the 911 call sent to him and played it for me. After listening to the perfect bell-like voice that sounded a little _too_ worried and scared about what happened. Like it was rehearsed and she was playing a role. Given the similarities of her voice and the Cullen women's voices I knew it was definitely the doer that called, and said doer was a vampire. The thing was… how much could I tell Charlie? He was a human after all, so the Volturi Law that Carlisle told me about applied to him.

"Charlie, I'm going to tell you this once, and I will expect you to not _ever_ bring it up again. Do you understand?" He furrowed his brow at me but gave me one stiff nod. "I'm not the most dangerous thing out there, Charlie," I began. "There are other _things_ out there that can do this kind of damage to a person and they do it for fun. They aren't human, they aren't animals, and they aren't like me. That's all I can tell you. If you know any more, your life will be in danger and I can't have that. So please trust that I am more than capable of handling this and please don't try and figure it out. You're safer if you don't know anything. I'm going to compel the dispatch to not remember this call, delete it from all the records and you will delete it from your phone. Can you trust me or do I need to change your memory as well?"

"You know I trust you to the ends of the earth and beyond, Bells. And it looks like this might be a bit of the beyond, eh?" I looked away from him, answering his question by not actually answering it. "Thought so… well, do what you need to do, but be careful. If you're not the most dangerous thing out there, then that means you can get hurt. I'd like to keep you around a while, okay?" I nodded and gave him an awkward hug.

"I need to make these remains disappear," he told me. "Unless you want to take care of that." I nodded and glanced towards the body. Molecular manipulation was one of the harder things on my list of skills, but still doable. I reached out towards the body and closed my eyes. Within seconds, the lifeless corpse was reduced to a pile of dust. I then concentrated my body heat into my palm and sent the flames towards the dust. With a powerful gust of air from my lungs, the ash was sent out of the boat and into the water. Some plankton or other small species would feast on that.

After playing it up for a few minutes, I acted as if the trail led me far away from the crime scene. I waved at Charlie, signaling for him to go home and that I'd take care of it. He nodded and headed towards his cruiser. I waited until he was well out of eye shot before I headed away from the trail and towards the coordinates Jasper gave me. Just before I took off, the sky opened up above me and rain began falling down in thick sheets. Perfect. It'd wash my scent away from the crime scene and make it impossible for Charlie or any of the other cops to follow it. And it also made it faster and easier for me to get to the location.

I lifted myself up off the ground and hovered just above the tree line. Staying low, it was less likely that a passerby would see me and report a human flying through the sky. Plus with the weather, it was even less likely that a human would even look up. I stayed just above the trees and far away from any roads though, so no one would see me. About a mile out from the coordinates, the rain stopped and I let myself land softly on the ground. It was always harder to maintain the flight without rain present.

When I arrived, the scene before me was not at all what I had expected. Carlisle was busy painting the chalk lines for a baseball field that was easily five times the size of a standard one. Edward and Jasper were playing catch, throwing the ball so fast even I could hardly see it. Alice and Rosalie were donning their Cullen baseball Jerseys and handing out the others while Esme waved me over. I ran to her at top speed, earning gasps from some others. They hadn't seen my speed yet.

"How'd it go with Charlie?" Esme asked. She wrapped a jersey around my shoulders. I noticed it said "Hells Bells" on the back. Emmett… Good thing I actually liked that nickname.

"Fine, I gave him the cliff notes version of what's going on here. Since he's human, he's in danger from the Volturi, so he can't know everything. I told him to trust that I'd handle it and that he didn't need to know all the details. He knows that I'd never withhold information from him unless absolutely necessary. The caller wasn't present when Charlie got to the scene though, which gave him a hunch that it was the doer that called. I listened to the 911 call and agree, based on the vocal patterns. They matched to one of yours. I think the female called in the crime."

"Why would she do that?" Rosalie asked. I looked up and saw the whole family had gathered around to listen to my story. I forgot how silent they could be, it nearly startled me.

"It's a game," I answered. "I've seen this behavior before in humans. Either she or one of the males was sadistic as a human and it carried over into vampirism. They like to play with their food, which is evident on the bodies; they like the chase and the idea of law enforcement coming after them, when they know they can never be caught. That is, until they meet me," I said with a grin. "This truly is a joy for me; I hope you all realize that. I was made for this kind of work. Literally. I get that they're your kind, so if you want me to try to not kill them, you need to tell me now. And even then, I can't guarantee that my instincts won't kick in."

"I don't relish the idea of killing any vampires," Carlisle answered. "But after today's victim and the game they're playing, these are exactly the kinds of vampires that the Volturi try to eradicate. Will I need to go in and do a coroner's report on the body?"

"Well, now there is no body," I told him. I explained what I did and that I'd need to alter the dispatch agent's memory so she didn't remember the call. Emmett was amazed. He reminded me a lot of my brother, Josh. I missed him terribly. They would have gotten along, I was sure.

"They're killing humans too close together in time and too many in the same region, and they're leaving behind evidence. Well, they _were_ leaving behind evidence. Sure, it's not evidence that humans can piece together, but given enough inexplicable bloodless torn apart corpses in one area, the humans are bound to start asking questions and spreading rumours about the supernatural. We hunt animals, and animals are found dead in the forests all the time. Yet, we still bury our kills, or leave them for the wolves, vultures, or other scavengers to find. The one rule is to never expose oneself to a human; that includes leaving bloodless victims lying around with clues. As much as it pains me to say, these nomads need to be destroyed. I doubt they'll listen to reason."

"Well, I'm sure they're of the mindset that you're at the top of the food chain, which in essence, you are, but only because humans remain clueless about you." I added. "One spark from one lighter is all it takes to set a vampire on a fast course to being a pile of ashes. The day humans realize vampires are real and how to kill them, you'll be on a fast track to extinction. I agree that secrecy is the key to survival. So to ensure that secrecy, this trio needs to go."

Everyone agreed and said they'd help as much as necessary. Something told me that as soon as I made eye contact with the nomads, all hell would break loose. Me being all hell… and I'd tear them apart and set them on fire within seconds. "Just so you know," Edward said as he approached me. "They'll have red eyes."

"What? Why?"

"Because they feed from humans," he answered. "We don't know exactly why, but mammal blood turns our eyes this golden color, while human blood makes them red."

"Does bird blood make them blue then?" I asked, jokingly. Emmett laughed but then got a serious look on his face and I knew he was going to try an all bird diet for a while. "In all truth though, I'm sure it has to do with the enzymes in blood. That's the only thing I can think of that would affect eye color. The enzymes in mammal blood differ vastly from human blood. What color are vampire eyes when they're freshly turned?"

"Crimson," Carlisle replied. "Very vibrant, almost glowing. Likely because their own human blood lingers in their tissues. For this reason, newborn vampires are far stronger than mature vampires for the first year of their lives." I shivered involuntarily at the idea of glowing red eyes. The thought just irked me.

"Finally, a natural reaction from you!" Emmett hollered. "I've been waiting for you to be afraid since we met you!"

"I'm not afraid," I defended. "Just disturbed. I don't know why, but the idea of red eyes really, really bothers me. Like on a deep level. Yes your eyes are unnatural for humans, but they're beautiful. They aren't off-putting. Just the concept of red ones makes me very, very uneasy. And that's not a feeling I'm very familiar with. Now, shall we get this game started?" I asked.

Emmett and Jasper high-fived and grinned at me. "You're in for a real treat Miss Swan," Jasper said.

And thus the game began. Edward was at bat first and as soon as his bat made contact with the ball, I understood the need for a nearby rainstorm. It sounded exactly like thunder, and I was certain that any humans within a few mile radius would have heard it. Jasper came up next and did some fancy trick with the bat before swinging. Show off.

As Jasper's ball sailed through the air, both Edward and Emmett were gunning for it. I don't know how they didn't see each other, but before the ball could be caught by either of them, they collided in mid-air, causing the loudest thunder-crash I had ever heard. Well, that's what happened when granite met granite, apparently. If I had ever wondered, I learned in that moment.

Watching them be their true selves was amazing. Edward was so fast. I knew that of course, because he beat me when we raced to his house from mine, but seeing him run while I stood still was one of the most incredible things I'd ever seen. Jasper was a close second in the speed department. Emmett hit the ball the hardest, of course, but Edward caught it before it could hit the ground. Jasper had the best pivot when it came to rounding bases, and Alice could pitch like no tomorrow.

Rosalie, Carlisle, and Alice all took their turns at bat while Esme remained as catcher. Finally it was my turn. They all wanted to show me their skills before I showed mine. Just as I was about to swing, Alice startled and threw the ball way out of range of the plate. I ran far left and tried to get it, but then realized why she freaked. I could smell them. They were here. I looked up and saw three individuals on the far end of the clearing. One of them had a darker pallor to his skin, as if he was of African descent before being turned. He also had dreadlocks that were in need of some attention. The second male was as pale as the Cullens and had stringy blond hair tied at the nape of his neck. The female was on the end, she had felinesque features and a stance that matched. Her hair was the shade of fire and in wild curls around her face. From this distance, I couldn't discern their eye color, though.

Edward raced over to me and put his arm around me. "I know you can take care of yourself, but I need to be close to you," he whispered low enough for only me to hear. I nodded at him. I figured that I looked pale enough to pass for a vampire, but I wasn't sure when they'd pick up on my scent.

I never got the chance to find out though. As soon as they got close enough for me to see their red eyes, the color clouded my vision and I knew no more.

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Bit of a cliffie here... what's gonna happen to the Nomads?!

Sorry for the delay on posting this. I was trying for weekly updates, but with a Convention coming up this weekend that I am ALMOST done preparing for, my free time has been very limited. Plus I wanted to get my other stories posted on here, which took longer to do than I anticipated.

What happens with Bella and the Nomads will come up next, but we'll find out that they crossed into Quileute territory on their way to the baseball field to meet the Cullens.. how will the Pack respond to that?


	10. Chapter 10

Sorry for the delay on this, folks. The convention was this past weekend and I got ZERO writing done during it. Finally got back to the grind yesterday. Here's what happens to the Nomads! SM is the stage, I am merely a player.

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Chapter 10

Edward PoV

I was so excited to see Bella's baseball finesse. Something told me she could quite literally give some of us a run for our money. At least knock Jasper down a peg or two. But my excitement was short lived and soon turned to fear. I saw the vision as Alice had it. The nomads were fast approaching. They'd heard the sound of our game and came to see what was going on. They knew only one thing could make _that_ sound. As soon as their figures broke through the trees, I ran to Bella. I just had to have her near.

She stood stock still as they approached. Good move. They'd think she was one of us unless the wind picked up and blew her scent towards them. They were getting closer, their bright red eyes betraying their recent meal. I glanced at Bella again and her eyes instantly turned solid black, taking over the entire white of her eye. This couldn't have been good. She broke free of my embrace and ran across the clearing faster than I've ever seen. "Bella, no!" I yelled, but she didn't stop.

The nomads didn't even have time to react. The one with the dreads and the blond tracker were in pieces within half a second. I saw the redheaded woman shriek and jump on Bella's back. All this happened so fast, we didn't have time to react. The woman's teeth bit into Bella's shoulder before I could rip her off. Emmett grabbed her from me, locking his arms around hers, immobilizing her. "You crazy bitch!" The woman yelled. I guess we needed a gag, too. "How dare you attack us?! What did we even do to you?" Bella was unresponsive, mechanically tearing apart the two males. She didn't even react to the bite that the woman gave her. I could see the venom burning her flesh, yet she didn't even flinch.

Bella's eyes turned glowing red and her hand caught fire. The whites of her eyes were still black, giving her eyes an eerie demonic look. She threw the flames at the pile of vampire pieces and they caught immediately. Seconds later, the flames were out and all that was left was ash. Her eyes cleared, turning back to the chocolate brown I'd grown to love. She shook her head as if to rid herself of what she had just done and looked around in confusion.

"How… when… what did I just do?" She looked down and saw the ashes. "I saw them enter the field and then… nothing. My mind went blank. Did I… did I kill them?" She turned to me.

"Yes, Bella, you did," I answered honestly. "You were in some kind of trance. Your entire eyes were black and you were unresponsive."

"You killed him!" The woman began screeching again. "You killed my mate! As soon as you're done turning, your ashes will meet his."

"Turning?" Bella asked. I pointed at her shoulder and she turned, seeing the crescent shaped bite marks left by the crazy red-head. The venom seemed to be oozing out of the wound, mixed with a bit of her blood. The combination was literally smoking, something I'd never seen before. "Huh, how 'bout that." And then she passed out. I was at her side in an instant, cradling her head in my lap. Carlisle knelt next to me and inspected her bite wound. It wasn't reacting in any normal way, which I figured would happen given she wasn't entirely human, but I had no way of knowing how vampire venom would affect her system.

"What have you done?!" I heard a male voice yell from just beyond the tree line. I was so focused on Bella that I didn't hear their thoughts. Six horse sized wolves and one huge Quileute man stepped into the clearing. I didn't move from my place. "Who bit her?" the same voice asked, it belonged to the one in human form.

"She did," I said, pointing at the red-headed nomad that was still locked in Emmett's arms. I didn't know how much the Quileutes knew about Bella, even with her father being very close to a couple of their elders. I didn't want to tell secrets that weren't mine so I left out the fact that the woman bit Bella because she turned her mate and companion to ashes.

"Are those vampire ashes?" the man asked again, pointing to the now blowing away piles of ash near Bella's feet. I listened to his thoughts, and they should nothing but concern for the girl that was lying on the ground. Apparently one of theirs had inadvertently phased in front of her and she knew all about them. But they didn't know much about her, it seemed. Though they did suspect something was up with the way she reacted to some things.

"Yes, they attacked Bella and we killed them. This one we saved, as she was the one that actually bit her. We thought Bella might want some revenge when she wakes up," Jasper offered. I sent him a sense of approval, so he'd know I thought he said the right thing. We had no idea if she was actually turning or if she was simply unconscious from the shock of what had happened. Her heartbeat was steady, she wasn't thrashing around, and it seemed like her body was pushing the venom out, rather than the venom altering her like it should.

"So, a Cullen didn't bite this human?" he asked again.

"Correct," Carlisle replied. He glanced at the wound. Knowing a wolf had never seen a vampire transform before, hey knew they wouldn't have a clue what a turning human looked like, or how the bite would react with the skin. "As you can see, the venom is working its way through her body," he explained. "If you smell it, you'll notice that the scent most definitely belongs to this nomad. You may also be interested to know that she and her coven mates were responsible for the killings that Bella's father has been investigating. The man leaned closer to Bella and sniffed, wrinkling his nose at the concentrated scent. Our venom was what gave us each our scent, so smelling it directly from the source rather than the diluted version that one would normally smell, was rather off-putting to a wolf. From his thoughts, I heard that we smelled sickly sweet to them. Well, they smelled like dirty wet dogs to us.

He then stepped closer to Emmett and got a whiff of the red-head. "It's the same," he confirmed. "A Cullen did not bite a human. The treaty is still intact," he said. "But she is turning. She will have to be destroyed."

"NO!" I yelled at the same time as one of the wolves howled and growled at the leader. "She is my mate," I declared. "I cannot live without her." Jacob Black was the wolf that howled. He thought of Bella as a really close friend; though he had hoped she would be his imprint. Apparently, an imprint was the wolf version of mating.

"Then you die with her," he replied, his face not betraying his thoughts. He was thinking of a young woman that he was clearly in love with. She had been horribly scarred when he lost his temper and phased with her too near. Clearly he had no clue of my mind-reading abilities, or he would likely try to hide those thoughts from me. I decided not to let on that I knew what he was thinking. Esme was bawling, Carlisle gripped my shoulder, and Alice was a wreck. Rosalie was staring at Emmett trying to decide what to think. If Emmett was taken from this world, she knew she wouldn't be far behind.

"Please, just let her be," I begged, tearless sobs wracking through my body. "She'll be like us; she'll feed only on animals. We'll teach her how. I know you all think we're just mindless, bloodthirsty monsters, but I promise you that we're not. We have souls, we think, we feel. We are capable of love. Whatever your tribe history has told you about vampires is not true of all of us.

"Our treaty with the Quileutes says nothing about destroying vampires that are not on your land. Secondly, the land you're on now is Cullen territory, where you are _not_ supposed to be. I want no quarrel with any of you, so we are not going to fight. But I will tell you that if you attempt to take my son's mate away from him, we will destroy all of you. I don't say this to threaten or encourage you to start a fight, but to simply state what will happen if you do. We are seven, and you are six. We have trained fighters in our group, and the oldest one of you has only been phasing for a year, from what I understand."

"No one's fighting anyone," Bella said. Wait. _Bella_ said?! She stood up abruptly and shook out her shoulders. Glancing at the wound on her neck, she gently blew on it and the wound closed up instantly. The venom had all seeped out, dripping down her arm and to the ground, and killing the grass where it fell. "I'm not turning into a vampire. My body fought the venom, just like it fights everything that attacks me. Like you said, no Cullen did the biting, so the treaty is intact. I won't be a vampire so there's no need to destroy me.

"I know you realized something was different about me, Sam. Well here's the cliff's notes version. Firstly, I'm not human, so even if a Cullen did bite me, your treaty wouldn't apply. Secondly, I have superpowers and could very easily kill all these vampires and all of you with a flick of my wrist. To prove it, I killed these red eyed vampires with my bare hands, and I have a very strong feeling that if I look at this one in the eyes, I'll kill her too. Considering she's being held by a man that I consider a brother, I'd rather not kill her just now and risk him getting caught in the crossfire. Jasper lied about who killed these two, but I understand why he did. They had no way of knowing what was happening to me, nor if I had told any of you about me.

"Now you know and can go on your merry way. What brought you out here anyway?" she asked. I knew the answer. The nomads had crossed into their territory and they were tracking them down. I waited for them to answer, though.

"We smelled leech on our land," Sam replied. "We don't allow leeches on our land, so we tracked them with the intent of destroying them." Their thoughts betrayed their hope that it was a Cullen that crossed the invisible boundary and thus incited a war. Sorry to disappoint you, boys.

"Well, have at it then," Bella said, gesturing to the red-head, but not making eye contact with her. "She did kill the two humans nearby, and led a fake trail away from the bodies so the humans would never find them. Little did she know that I was on the case, though." She stepped away from the group as the wolves slowly approached Emmett and the red-head.

"I think they want to chase her, Emmett," I offered. Their thoughts told me that exactly, but I didn't want to convey that I knew that for certain. He reluctantly let her go and she was off like a shot. Her thoughts told me that she planned to go to the Volturi and tell them what happened, and that we were friends with a pack of werewolves. They weren't werewolves in the strictest sense, but still, the Volturi wouldn't honor a treaty with them. The wolves bolted after her and within a few seconds, we could hear the tell-tale metallic screech of a vampire being torn apart. They were very fast. I wonder if her instinct for evasion didn't work with the wolves, she didn't try any evasive maneuvers whatsoever, just ran in a straight line due east.

Bella ran over to where they were, which was just on the other side of the field. "Need a light?" she asked, letting her hand catch fire again. The wolves all jumped back in shock, watching her set the vampire on fire. "Cool, huh?" She bumped her fist against Jacob's snout and skipped back to us. Yes, she skipped, like tra-la-la skipped.

"So, that was new," she said. "Turns out venom hurts like a bitch. I'll be going through an upgrade now, so I need to go to my house and into the panic room. You can't come with me or I'll tear you apart, whether I want to or not. I nearly tear myself apart every time."

"Upgrade?" Emmett asked.

"Well, I've been attacked, so my body will now be evolving to be stronger than what attacked me. My skin will be harder than vampire teeth, I imagine, and I'll be completely immune to venom. Every time my body is attacked by anything, it evolves to be stronger than and resistant to whatever attacked it. But the transformation is extremely painful. Every cell in my body changes, altering my DNA. I'll be out for about forty-eight hours, I estimate. I suppose I'll have to have Charlie call me into school for a couple more days. It's going to start any minute now, so I need to get home before it does, or I may massacre half the town. Please don't try to come over. I'll call as soon as it's done."

With that she left. Shot out of the clearing like a bullet, without even a goodbye. She was going to be in pain and I couldn't do anything to help. "Where'd she go now?" Sam asked, having returned to our group.

"Um, something about an upgrade and evolution," Emmett answered. "Dude, the science is a bit beyond me." Hell, it was a bit beyond me, and I went to med school twice. Even Carlisle was having a hard time wrapping his mind around it. We went back to our house, the desire for playing baseball having blown away like the nomads' ashes on the wind.

"Do you think she heard me say that she was my mate?" I asked. "She seemed to have heard a lot of what was said between us and the wolves, but didn't comment on that little tidbit. Then again, maybe she thought I meant mate in a different sense, like friends."

"We're not Australian," Emmett stated. "I think if she did hear, then she chose to focus on more important issues like the matter of us going to war with the wolves for no reason. That kind of trumps your mating declaration by a little bit, bro." Well he had me there.

All I wanted was to go to her house and find her panic room. I didn't even know she had a panic room. Then again, that morning, I had no idea that she was even inhuman. I had my theories of course, that she was possible very specially trained or something, but the idea of her being basically a mutant had never entered into my consciousness. Alice had to stop me from leaving the house on multiple occasions.

"I can't see what she'll do, only that you're in pieces when she comes out of her 'upgrade' as she called it. She'll be devastated, Edward. Even if you can be put back together, she'll never forgive herself for hurting you. Do you want that?" Hell no I didn't! I resolved to staying in my room and listening to Claire de Lune over and over again. I desperately wanted her here, in my arms, her lips against mine. It was pure heaven for me, and I was determined to have it happen again soon.

It would be morning soon and we had to go back to school. Once there, the rumors were already going around that Bella was a lot more hurt in the almost accident than was let on. The fact that I was walking around without a scratch on me had people wondering what really happened. And more people than normal were trying to get me to answer questions. "Is Bella okay?" Mike Newton asked. He would be interested in her. Caveman.

"Yes, she's fine. Just a bit sore. She wasn't hurt by the van, but she did hit the ground pretty hard, kinda like getting knocked over by a three hundred pound linebacker, I guess," I lied. "She should be back on Thursday, I think though. That's what my dad said anyway. Just a couple days of rest and then back to the grind." Mike seemed appeased at my explanation. I said it loud enough that Jessica and Lauren heard to. Between the two of them, the rest of the school will have heard that Bella was fine. Though I wouldn't have been surprised if the story did come back that she had some horrible flesh-eating disease by the end of the day.

Chief Swan called that night asking what happened to Bella to make her have another "upgrade." Honestly, she sounded like a Cyberman from Doctor Who. I mentioned that aloud and Emmett began wobbling around the house as if he didn't have any knees, declaring, "You will be upgraded," over and over again in a monotone voice. I should have kept my thoughts to myself.

"I'm sorry Chief Swan, but if Bella hasn't told you exactly what happened, we're not at liberty to say. She did tell us all about her and we told her all about us, but you cannot know everything. It's for your own safety."

"I'm the damn Chief of Police, Dr. Cullen. I'll decide what's for my own safety or not," he retorted. I had to roll my eyes. _You're awesome chief, but this is a tiny ass town,_ Emmett thoughts were along with my own.

Carlisle bit back a sigh. "Yes Chief, you are, but this is way beyond Forks PD's jurisdiction. Beyond the FBI, Interpol, CIA, NSA, MI6, you name it. It's bigger than all of us, and I'm sorry to reiterate, but you cannot know. We'll all be in danger if you do."

"This isn't some mafia shit, is it?" Emmett laughed out loud at that.

"No sir, I assure you there's nothing illegal about it, but as Bella has likely told you, humans aren't the only monsters out there." I had to figure that turning a human into a vampire wasn't technically illegal, but there were ways to twist the interpretation of the laws around.

I heard Charlie grunt. "Well, alright then. Bella put me on a need-to-know basis and I guess I don't need to know this, huh?"

Carlisle grinned grimly. "Correct Chief Swan, you do not need to know this. Ever."

"I just want her to be okay and to be happy," The Chief said, almost in tears.

"We've only known your daughter for a short while, but we're all quite attached to her, too. All we want is her safe and happy as well. And she will be. She didn't really go into specifics about this upgrade thing, but assured us that she'd be okay within a couple days."

"Yeah that's what she said, too. Doc, you know she's not really my daughter, right?" Charlie asked.

Carlisle chuckled. "Well Chief, biologically, none of my children are my own either, but that doesn't make me any less their father or them any less my children. You may not have provided your own DNA to her creation, but you helped her, guided her, taught her, saved her, and took her in when she needed you most. If that's not the definition of a father, then I don't know what is."

Charlie thanked Carlisle for the chat and said he'd have Bella call us when she came out of her upgrade. Emmett started laughing all over again and then going around the house shouting, "Delete. Delete. Delete," on repeat. I loved Doctor Who, but Emmett could really make me hate it.

The next morning, before we were all leaving for school, the phone rang. Carlisle answered. "Bella? Hello! How are you feeling?"

I scrambled down the stairs to take the phone. He gestured for me to wait. "Edward? Certainly, let me see if he's around." Carlisle was chuckling silently as he made me wait an acceptable amount of time for him to call me down from my room. After five agonizing seconds he finally handed me the phone, a shit-eating grin on his face. Bastard.

"Bella? Love, are you alright?" I asked.

"Yes, Edward. I'm fine." She sounded so drained. Well, the worst part is over. I'm still taking today off of school to sleep. The upgrade really takes a lot out of me. I'd be dead on my feet all day today."

"Well, I'm dead on my feet every day," I joked.

"Edward Cullen, did you just make a vampire joke?" she asked, laughing.

I laughed with her. "Why yes, I believe I did. Another first for me, Miss Swan."

The family had gathered around, most of them in awe at the banter between me and Bella. They'd never seen me so carefree. "Well, I was thinking that maybe you could come over after school," she suggested. "I may very well still be asleep when you arrive, but you can come into my room and sit with me if you like."

"You want me to hold you while you sleep?" I asked, hopeful.

"I would love that, Edward," she agreed. Holy crap. "What do you think?"

"I'll be there. Two thirty."

"Great! I'll see you later then. Um, be prepared for me to look a little… different."

"Different how?" I asked, concerned.

"Well, I think I still look more or less the same, but there are some differences, and changes I'll have to get used to. You'll see when you get here. It's ah… it's a little hard to describe over the phone."

I was concerned, confused, and curious all at the same time. It seemed everyone else was as well. I promised I'd keep an open mind and that nothing could change the way I felt about her. "That makes me very happy Edward. I'll see you soon." We said goodbye and I gently replaced the phone to the cradle as if it was about to break.

School could not get over soon enough. The rumors began all over again with some people swearing they heard a wild animal inside the Swan house. Something told me it was probably Bella screaming during her transformation or upgrade. The fact that she was still out of school added to the ridiculous stories that were going around. I was on my way to my car when a motorcycle pulled up abruptly, blocking my path.

Jacob Black was sitting on it, glaring at me. "You said she wasn't turning," he hissed.

"Um, actually, Bella said she wasn't turning. Not me. And she hasn't turned. She said herself that she was going through some kind of upgrade due to her body altering to be stronger than whatever attacked it. She was attacked by a vampire. Something tells me it'd be a hell of an upgrade."

"You hurt her, I'll tear you apart. Understand?" he asked.

"I hurt her, and I'll beg you to do just that," I agreed. He gave me a curt nod and spun out of the lot, squealing the tires on the way. How mature, Mr. Black. I noticed he wasn't wearing a helmet nor a shirt. Being a wolf, he was resilient, but still, he should keep up appearances so as not to draw attention to himself.

As I walked to my car, I heard whispers from the students who saw the exchange. None of them heard the words, but they were all guessing that Jacob and I were fighting over Bella. Perhaps if the whole imprinting thing wasn't an issue then we would be, but Jacob already knew that Bella wasn't his intended. This was strictly a vampire vs. wolf thing.

I pulled up outside Bella's house and heard her sleeping. I knew she had to be sleeping due to the light snores and incoherent mumblings every few seconds. With a quick listen to the neighbors to find out if anyone was watching me, I scaled the tree outside her window, opened it with ease and slipped inside.

"Who the fuck are you?" a voice asked. I looked up and a young man emerged from her closet. I'd never seen him before. He had sandy blond hair, golden tan skin, and ice blue eyes. Definitely not a resident of the Pacific Northwest, that was for sure.

"I could ask you the same thing."

* * *

Well? What did you think of the nomad non-fight? Victoria bit Bella... how 'bout that... And who is the mystery man lurking in Bella's closet?


	11. Chapter 11

Here's Chapter 11 already. I had a bit of inspiration, so i wrote as fast as my fingers would allow me to. It'll probably take me a week to get chapter 12 out, so enjoy this update while you can ;)

Thank you for reading!

SM is the stage; I am merely a player.

* * *

Chapter 11

I was very glad that Charlie had put this panic room underneath his garage. West coast houses couldn't' have basements, but this room was off the books. It was reinforced titanium steel alloy and about ten feet by ten feet. He originally had a bed and chair in it, but I assured him that I would only tear the furniture apart. I wasn't sure what was left on the planet that could cause another upgrade, but I was certainly glad that we planned ahead. If not, I would have torn the whole house down.

When I arrived at home, Charlie asked me how it went with the search. "Crisis averted. You'll find no more deaths of that kind. I'm gonna go spend forty-eight hours in the panic room."

"What? Why?"

"No time to explain. I'm having an upgrade, Charlie. Likely the last one I'll ever have." I disappeared into the garage without another word. I lifted the slab above the panic room, opened the trap door and slipped inside. I was the only one capable of getting in and out of this room. Well, perhaps a vampire could, but I had to use my telekinesis to place the slab back in its place without it slamming into the ground and cracking.

I could feel the fire begin to build from where that crazy bitch bit me. I wondered if this was at all what it felt like to become a vampire. As the pain consumed me, altering every cell of my being, I lost consciousness. Giving myself over to the instinct, I clawed at the walls, clawed at the floor, the ceiling, and even my own skin. Blackness took over my vision, silence took over my hearing, and I knew nothing but the pain.

Finally, after what could have been days or mere minutes, the pain began to recede. My vision returned and I saw the state of the room around me. The reinforced titanium-steel alloy had been reduced to shreds. I knew I could have damaged the wall before this upgrade, but this was beyond damage. This was utter decimation and destruction. All of it would have to be replaced.

After a few more hours, I was coherent enough to make my way out of the pile of torn metal, through the garage and into the house. Charlie wasn't home, which was good. I needed to ascertain the changes to my body without him. I realized after the fact that I'd torn the door from the garage into the house off the hinges. Great, another learning curve with controlling my own strength. _Maybe I'll be stronger than Emmett now_, I thought.

I ate a box of cereal, simply pouring the milk into the bag within the box and downing the mixture within seconds. I needed to refuel quickly.

Upstairs, in the bathroom, I assessed the differences in my appearance. Confident that they weren't enough that a human would notice, but knowing that Edward and his family surely would. My hair was a shade darker and seemed thicker than before, my eyes were the same chocolate brown, but seemed to have more facets of color in them. My skin was pale as ever, but appeared smoother and firmer, no doubt a reaction to the vampire teeth that pierced it. I never did have fingerprints, but there wasn't a crease to be found on my skin anywhere.

I stood in front of the mirror examining every inch of my body, looking for any other changes. The markers that showed I was inhuman were still present, ever hidden beneath my clothing. Though now my clothes were mere tatters that hung off my shoulders and hips. I watched as my skin paled even more and felt as my temperature dropped. Before, I had only ever been able to concentrate my body heat in one area, leaving the rest cold, but it wasn't being concentrated anywhere, it was simply disappearing. As if I was standing out in the arctic tundra for days, my core temperature dropped to below fifty degrees.

My heart was still pumping and all my other vital signs appeared normal. The only difference was my lack of body heat. Then it dawned on me. I now had a defense mechanism against vampires. They'd be less likely to try to kill me if they thought I was one. A chameleon-like defense, I could blend in with them. I looked up again at the mirror and saw that my eyes had turned red. Not the same red when I'm creating fire, but red like the nomads that I attacked. I very nearly attacked my reflection when I saw it. I would have to work on that knee-jerk reaction. It would not do good to attack every red-eyed vampire I saw in my life. Though I hoped that number would be small.

After cataloging all my changes, I decided to call over to the Cullens to assure them that I was still alive. Carlisle answered and handed the phone over to Edward. He agreed to come over after school and hold my while I slept. That thought made me smile.

I crawled across the hall to my room, careful not to send my feet through the stairs, threw on some pajamas as my clothes had been shredded to bits, and nearly collapsed on my bed, falling into a dreamless slumber. Around the time I expected Edward to show up, I began to stir.

I could hear two voices having some kind of argument. One voice I recognized as Edward; the other one sounded familiar, though I knew I'd never heard it before. I opened my eyes and saw my bronze haired god facing off with a stranger who appeared to be half way standing in my closet. He was as tall as Edward, had sandy blond hair, blue eyes and tan skin. Almost exactly the opposite of Edward. "What in god's name is going on? Who are you?" I demanded.

Edward rushed to my side and held my face in his hands. "My love, are you alright?" he asked, caressing my firmer cheeks. "You look different. You feel different. What happened?"

"I'm wonderful, Edward. Now that you're here." I held his hand against my cheek with my own, staring deeply into his eyes.

"I'm Lukas," the strange man said, pulling me from my little world with Edward. "We're the same."

"The same what?" I asked. He lifted his t-shirt and revealed his torso to me. He had the same markings across his abdomen that I did. I stood up abruptly and stepped over to him. I reached out and touched the mark, learning it wasn't a fake, nor was it a tattoo. Like me, he had The Company's logo as a part of his skin. I had studied my own mark and learned it was simply skin, not altered, but somehow, they made it so the pigment level in that area was higher than the rest of my body, resulting in a dark brown tattoo-like birthmark. "This is impossible," I rasped.

"Turns out, it isn't," he replied. "I escaped a few years after you did," he told me. "I went into hiding, knowing what The Company was about and what they would do to me if they found me. I knew you existed, but I didn't know where you were. And I didn't want to risk them finding either of us if I looked for you. Now that I know The Company is gone, I figured it was safe to come find you."

I blinked at him. "So what have you been doing all these years?"

"Honestly, mostly reading. Anything I could get my hands on. I've read every encyclopedia, dictionary, and textbook at the library at the University of Minnesota. They have over a million books there."

"Why not just tap into the database of the Library of Congress?" I asked. It had more than twenty million books, much bigger knowledge base there. "It would be way faster than reading one book at a time." I'd done it. The Library of Congress took the time to scan every page of every book with in their walls, minus the special collection. They were all available to 'rent' from their website. I hacked through it and downloaded all of them. Every word of every page was a mere thought away in my brain.

"What do you mean 'tap in' to the database? Hack it? I don't know how to do that. I can read really fast though. Only took me a week to read all the books at the library. I had to sneak in after hours, but that wasn't too hard. We can move really fast, you know."

Okay, so he and I were definitely not "the same." I instantly knew why The Company didn't go after him. I was sure they knew about him, knew he'd escaped. But when they did go looking for him, all they found was an immortal kid who wasn't all that much more gifted than an average human. He didn't seem to be able to tap into the unlimited potential that lurked beneath the surface of his mind. Definitely nowhere near on par with me.

"How long have you been hiding in my closet?" I asked.

He looked at the floor. "Every night since last Monday," he answered. "Not all night though. I come in through the window with the intention of waking you so I can introduce myself, but instead I can't bear to wake you. You look so peaceful, so I watch for a few minutes, then leave."

Well if that didn't make him Creepy McCreeperson, I didn't know what did. "Okay, you've introduced yourself, Lukas. You can leave now," I declared.

"But… we're… we're the same. We're meant to be together. I can feel it. Can't you?"

"Whoa there, cowboy, slow your roll," I replied putting up a hand to stop him in place. He tried to move against it, but I held him frozen. If he truly was just like me, he'd be able to break free of that telekinetic hold. Maybe he hadn't gone through as many upgrades as me, or any for that matter if the most he's done over the past decade is read. "Now in case you hadn't guessed, Edward and I are together. You and I are not, nor will we ever be. I don't know you. I don't particularly want to. I have all the family that I need in my life. I thought I had gotten rid of every shred of evidence that The Company ever existed, and here you come waltzing into my house like you own it, watching me sleep and declaring that we're soul mates. I don't think so, Lukas. You can take your sandy blond hair and go find some other woman to woo."

It was harsh; I knew it was harsh, but I also knew that if I wasn't very direct and straightforward with him, he'd keep trying. Hell, he might still keep trying. "But, Isabella, we're the same!" I was way too tired for this shit.

"No we're not," I replied. "See how you're frozen in place? If we were truly the same, you'd break free of that hold easily. If we were truly the same you wouldn't have spent the last ten years with your nose in a million different books. We're not even close to the same, not even on the same level. We may have been created the same way by the same people, but we're not equals. Not by a long shot. And the name is Bella.

"Tell me, when you escaped, how did you 'know' what The Company was and what they would do to you?" I asked. He shrugged. "Exactly. You just knew it, right? Well, apparently you didn't figure out that your brain downloaded everything in The Company's mainframe. You knew all the experiments, had copies of all the notes, footage from every security camera, which is how you knew about me. You think you just woke up with that knowledge? No, not a chance."

Clearly The Company had found a way to implant basic knowledge into a subject, since he woke up with the ability to understand language and decipher what was in his head, but he didn't have a clue how he knew those things. It was as if his deductive reasoning skills were sorely lacking. Or he had zero curiosity whatsoever apart from finding me. I had to wonder at his true motives for looking for me. Just because he was a male version of me did not mean we were meant to be together.

There was something else going on here, and I was determined to find out what it was. Lukas was gazing off into space as if discovering his own life for the first time. And perhaps, that's exactly what he was doing. If he couldn't break my telekinesis, that probably meant he didn't have as much control over his brain as I had over mine, which suggested that he wasn't telepathic, and therefore I could read his mind. Bingo.

He began groveling at my feet, begging me to give him a chance. Yet another clue that he and I were not even in the same league of people. Not that I considered myself out of anyone's league, I wasn't that conceited, but I would never reduce myself to begging at someone's feet for a chance to date them. No way. As he sobbed and pleaded, I spared a glance at Edward, winking at him. He smirked back at me and I delved into Lukas' mind.

I was astounded to learn that he truly believed that he and I were meant to be. Ever since he woke up from being in the tank, his primary focus was finding me. He fought his own mind for years as he pursued other things, mainly reading a million books, as he said. My adventure through his mind told me that he wasn't anywhere near as evolved as me. I wasn't even sure he had the auto-evolution gene that I did. There was a memory of him getting cut by a knife when making himself food and while it healed quickly, he didn't go through a transformation making him stronger than the knife that cut him. So he could easily be killed. Perhaps he could even become a vampire. If that was the case, it was very important that he never learn about vampires nor be in close contact with any, especially the human drinkers.

"Look Lukas, I've no problem getting to know you. It is nice to know I'm not the only survivor of The Company. But you need to get one thing very clear," I told him. "You and I will never be together. Whether I was with Edward or not, it's not going to happen. Not ever. Do you understand that?"

"Yes, Isa… I mean Bella. I understand. I guess… I guess I can learn to be just your friend."

I stifled an eye roll at that. "That's just it, Lukas. You've created this pseudo-relationship in your mind. You've got it in your head that I'm this specific person, but I'm not. Not even close. We've never met before today. You may have found me and watched me sleep, but until just a little bit ago, I didn't even know you existed. You're barely more than a complete stranger to me right now. And if you think that it's going to become more than friendship, you've got another thing coming.

"Keep this in mind. I'm faster, stronger, and smarter than you in every way." He scoffed. "It's true, Lukas. I just read your mind. Can you read mine?" His eyes went wide and he shook his head. "See, proof that I'm better…. I don't say this to put you down or put myself higher than you. I say it to make you realize that you won't be able to use your special abilities to woo me. I won't be impressed because I can do them, too. Show me something I can't do other than pee standing up, and then we'll talk.

"Now, I'd like to have some alone time with my boyfriend before my dad gets home, so if you wouldn't mind leaving, I'd greatly appreciate it." He nodded, telling me where he was staying. I made a mental note to track his location at all times. I didn't want him sneaking up on me or watching me sleep any more. "That reminds me; don't ever come into my house without my permission ever again." I said it with enough threat in my voice that he knew I'd do something to him if he did; there was no need to say exactly what that something might be.

He left out the window and ran across the street and into the woods. I tracked him mentally until I heard him enter his little cabin in the middle of the park. He sat down on the bed and began crying again. Good lord, kid. _We're the same? Puh-lease_.

"That was a big harsh, Bella," Edward finally said.

"I know," I replied. "I did it because I had to. He wouldn't have relented. I still think there's something else going on, but I couldn't find anything in his memories. The whole encounter reeked of deceit, but he was honest. He truly did read a million books at the University of Minnesota. And he truly believes that he and I are meant to be. Even after I assured him it'd never happen, he still thinks he'll find a way. And now he'll probably get himself killed in the process."

"But I thought your kind couldn't be killed," Edward stated.

"My kind? Edward, I'm the only one. That boy is a failed experiment of The Company. That's why they never went after him. The only thing he has going for him is immortality and the ability to read really fast and retain what he reads. He's got some strength and speed, but that's where it ends. Considering he was born after me, you'd think he'd be more evolved than I am, but clearly something went wrong with his alterations. I'd ask, but there's no one left to ask… unless… unless I picked it out of his brain."

"Didn't you just read his mind?" Edward asked. "Can't you remember what he knows?"

"I didn't go that deep. The knowledge from The Company is buried deep, beneath several layers of psychosis. When he said he didn't know how he knew who The Company was or who I was, he just "knew?" It's because it's buried so deep in his sub-conscious that even he doesn't know how to get at it. It'd probably take me all day to crack through to that level. But I think I need to. I need to know what The Company was doing to him and why he came out so differently than I did.

"But I don't want to talk about him anymore, Edward. I just want to lie in your arms and go back to sleep. I'm still so tired."

"When you wake, will you tell me what happened, and why your skin is so much firmer than it was? I know you said you'd evolve to be stronger than what attacked you, I'm just asking for details. Your hair is darker, too, and your eyes are slightly different."

"There's more," I told him. "But it can wait. Now I want to sleep." He lie on the bed and opened his arms to me. I snuggled up into him and he wrapped me securely in his embrace. I was out within seconds, back to my perfect sleep-land.

* * *

A/N: I know Bella was super harsh on Lukas, and I did that on purpose. You'll see why in a couple chapters. In my original novel, Starry Eyes (not yet published) Lukas is a lot more on par with my main character and they go toe-to-toe a lot. I made him weaker and less "evolved" than Bella in this fic. Pretty much all he got out of the experiments was immortality, super speed, and the ability to process knowledge faster. The Company considered him a failed experiment, which is why they never went after him.


	12. Chapter 12

Here's a new update! I know I'm not terribly consistent, and for that I apologize. It all has to do with how busy I am at work and if I have any spare time to get any writing done. It's been a crazy week both at work and at home, so writing time has been minimal. But I did get enough time today to knock this baby out. I hope you enjoy!

SM is the stage; I am merely a player.

Chapter 12

Edward PoV

I held Bella closely while she slept. Though it was more like a coma than sleep, in my opinion. She was so deeply asleep that the only movement she made was her eyes darting back and forth. After a few hours she adjusted, snuggling into me. Her body was aligned with mine and her movement caused certain things below the belt to get a bit excited. I began running through the line ups of the Chicago Cubs for the last eighty years to get rid of it, but it wouldn't go away. One of the many drawbacks of being a vampire, erections do not ever go away until you take care of business, as Emmett would say.

Taking care of business would require leaving her side, which I was reluctant to do. She pulled out of my embrace and rolled onto her stomach, as if subconsciously knowing I needed to be elsewhere. The fact that she was so strong was still mind-boggling to me. Yet, it did allow me freedom to roll away from her and head towards the bathroom for a few minutes. It almost felt like cheating, but I couldn't very well walk around all day with a raging erection. Plus, I didn't think Bella would appreciate waking to that sight either, especially the first time she let me hold her while she slept. Definitely not a good idea.

When I returned to her room, she was still fast asleep, lying on her stomach, a serene smile on her face. I took a few moments to study her and couldn't find it in me to blame Lukas for wanting to watch her sleep. It was fascinating. Though, the fact that he did it without her permission was reprehensible.

Wasting few thoughts on the boy that thought he could win her over by merely looking at her, I vowed to help her figure out what she needed to know about him. I had to agree that the entire thing reeked of conspiracy or something. Emmett would love to get involved. He loved anything involving secret companies, conspiracy theories, and general espionage. Not that Bella couldn't handle it on her own, but she shouldn't have to.

I strode to her bookcase which was filled to bursting with various classics. She had all the Bronte sisters accounted for, Jane Austen, George Orwell, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, and even some newer ones which surprised me. I never figured her one to enjoy the dystopian genre novels, but along with Orwell, she had all three Hunger Games books. I had yet to read them, so I selected the first one and made myself comfortable on the unoccupied half of her bed. She was still sleeping soundly and seemed like she would still for a few more hours. I could finish these three books and more in that time, and then we'd have even more to talk about.

After finishing all three Hunger Games books, I realized why she liked them. She put herself in Katniss' shoes. With all of Bella's extra skills and abilities, she would dominate the Hunger Games and would have led Panem to peace with a mere flick of her hand. Perhaps that's what she dreams about, saving the world. I had to wonder if I was the Peeta to her Katniss. Though I doubted than any manner of torture that the Capitol put me through could ever make me want to harm her. I just hoped that I didn't become Gale and Lukas took over her heart. Given the way she regarded him, that was highly unlikely, but until we figured out what he was really here for, anything was possible.

A couple hours later, she stirred. I'd finished the Orwell novels and nearly threw 1984 across the room when I read the last line. I'd read it years before, and almost forgot the ending. Damn Orwell to the pits of hell for that one. "What are you reading 1984 for?" Bella asked. "I know you've already read it. Why re-read it?"

"Why do you keep all these books if you've read them?" I countered. "I'm guessing it's because you enjoy the feel of a familiar book in your hands. Regardless of your mind's capacity to remember every word on every page for the rest of time, you can still get lost in the pages. Not that I'd want to get lost in Orwell's 1984, but you get my point. How are you feeling, love?"

"Better, thank you," she replied. She turned over towards me and snuggled into me, laying her head on my chest. "Even better now." I wrapped my arm around her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Her hum of contentment told me it was the right thing to do. "I'm vampire proof now," she said. "And I apparently acquired a bit of a chameleon ability."

"Chameleon ability?" I queried. She sat up and turned to me, grabbing my arm. I watched as her already pale skin lightened even further to match mine. I looked up into her eyes and saw they had turned golden yellow just like mine and then I felt as the body heat left her body and her temperature was as cool as mine. "Well, that's something." I couldn't think of anything else to say, I was too much in awe. Alice had seen her as one of us when we first met, and of course I had no idea that this was the reason she saw what she did. Bella would never be a vampire, but she could sure mimic one perfectly.

"I think I can mask my heartbeat, too," she added. She closed her eyes in concentration and sure enough, within a couple minutes, the volume of her heartbeat died down until I couldn't hear it at all. I had to physically touch her to be able to tell she even had a pulse. "This will all come in handy if we ever cross paths with some vampires again, especially the Volturi. I kind of feel that the less they know about me the better, do you agree?"

"Wholeheartedly. Could you bring your normal look back, though? This one is starting to freak me out," I admitted. She giggled as her skin darkened to her normal creamy tone and her eyes changed back to the brown I'd grown to love.

"I dreamt about Lukas last night," she said once she was back to normal. Well, normal for her now that she was vampire proof, anyway. "I think I might know what's going on with him." She got out of the bed and stretched her limbs.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I think he's not so much a failed experiment, but a plant," she replied. I urged her to continue. "I need a few minutes to wake up," she said to my urging. "I'll be back in six minutes." She looked at the clock on her night stand. I waited, staring at my watch, watching the second hand make its torturously slow way around the dial six times and just as she said, she returned. Freshly showered and changed into clean clothes. "Much better. Come on and make me breakfast while I tell you my theory."

"Breakfast? But it's dinner time," I stated, confused.

I followed her down the stairs and into the kitchen. She got out the ingredients to make pancakes, I figured, so I set to work, measuring and mixing the batter. That much I could do. She sat at the table and waited patiently while I poured the batter into the pan, waited for the bubbles, and flipped it at the proper time. After a few failed flips, I got the hang of it. She was busy scraping pancake batter off the ceiling when she spoke about Lukas again. Might I add she was clinging to the ceiling like Spiderman, and it was all I could do to not call Emmett over just so he could see her with his own eyes.

"I think he's programmed to be like he is. Needy, overly emotional, and solely focused on getting my attention. I think they didn't give him the auto-evolution gene on purpose. They didn't want him to be like me, but made him to lure me in. Unfortunately for him, The Company is gone, so there's nowhere for him to lure me to. Unless there was a branch that I didn't know about. Something that they somehow kept out of their databases, completely off the grid. It would explain how I had no clue that he even existed. When I ran through the database in my own head, I was the only active experiment at the time. All the others before me had perished and they hadn't created any more after me. Or so I was made to believe."

"When you say programmed…" I queried. I was busy catching the bits of pancake that she scraped off the ceiling as they fell.

"Our minds are like computers, software can be downloaded into them, and since his mind isn't as strong as mine, he's not able to fight the program." She crawled across the ceiling and down the wall in a way that was almost creepy. I half expected her head to turn all the way around and her eyes to go white. "The Company's original mission was to program us to do their bidding, or the bidding of whoever paid the most for us. Assassination, law enforcement, espionage, the list goes on and on of the careers I could get into with my skills. If you ever watched the show Dollhouse by Joss Whedon, you'd know what I'm talking about. They could literally implant any personality, characteristics, thoughts, memories, an entire life into our heads. Unlike the dolls in Dollhouse, we're also genetically different as I've explained." She sat down at the table to her plate of steaming pancakes and proceeded to douse them with butter and syrup. Part of me wanted to warn her about the effects of high cholesterol and too much sugar, but then I remembered she probably metabolized everything before it could do her any harm.

After eating half her plate, she continued. "The problem they ran into with me was that my mind was more powerful than the programming, so I saw right through the subterfuge and could pull myself out of it, kind of like the Alpha character on that show. Then of course, I evolved to be unable to have those programs put in my head again, so they lost their most precious asset. That was when they began trying to kill me, again with no success." She took a break from her speech to finish her pancakes. I took the plate from her and began rinsing it in the sink.

"With Lukas, I surmise, they were able to successfully program his mind because they didn't allow him as much control over his brain as I have over mine. And with that, they lost the ability to give him auto-evolution. So he can be killed. Yes, he can heal quickly, but I could set him on fire, watch him heal and do it all over again and he'd never evolve to be fireproof." She shook her head at the image. "Not that I'm that sadistic, I assure you. I'm just giving an example… clearly a bad one."

I pulled her from her seat and into my arms, to reassure her. "It's okay Bella. You'll do what you have to do to fix the situation. Of that I have no doubt. And you forget that I've already seen you set someone on fire, it's quite the sight to behold. Not that I'm waiting in line to see you do it again, but I'll admit to being in awe before I was in shock. I know you don't want to have to kill Lukas, and I don't want that for you either. But I can already tell that you're the kind of person that will go to any length to protect yourself and those you love. If Lukas were to threaten Charlie, for example, I know you'd take him out and any others that came in your way without batting an eye." She grimaced. "It's not a judgment, Bella, it's a compliment. You're fiercely protective of those you care about. That's a beautiful thing. I don't condone the killing, of course, but I can't fault you for caring that much."

"I've killed, Edward," she whispered, so lowly I barely heard her.

"Yes I know, I was there," I answered. "You can hardly call that murder though, Bella. They had killed humans in a way that was beyond the acceptable limits for a vampire. They were sadistic and murderous. I wouldn't have been surprised if one of them was a serial killer in their human life. What you did was justified and no more than the Volturi would have done in the same situation."

She huffed in frustration. "That's not what I mean. I mean I've killed humans. Lots of them. I told you the other day; four hundred and sixty-two humans have died by my hands. And those are just the ones I killed on purpose. When I mentioned this the other day, you didn't even flinch. How can you not be upset that I've killed so many?"

I led her out of the kitchen and into the living room where we sat on opposite ends of the couch. I didn't want her far away from me, but I could tell she needed the space. "I've killed, too," I told her. "We all have. Carlisle technically killed me, Esme, Rosalie, and Emmett. Yes, we woke up to a new life, but our human lives are long over, at his hands. Though we all would have died soon, anyway, he saved us as well. And he continues to save lives every day at the hospital. I had a bout of rebellion when I was new to this life. I resented Carlisle for curbing my appetite and decided to hunt humans. I fed only on the murderers, rapists, and other criminals, but that didn't make what I did any less than what it was. Murder.

"I killed over five hundred people over the course of 3 years. After I came back to Carlisle as the prodigal son, I felt tremendous guilt over what I had done. He talked me through it and helped me see that while yes I did take lives, I was ridding the world of some of its evil. But still, I don't have the right to play god, and while I no longer feel guilt for killing those people, I try and focus on the lives that I saved in the process.

"Jasper has lost count of how many he killed while being part of the Southern Vampire Wars, which I'm sure he'll tell you all about if you ask him. He turned countless humans into vampires, fed from thousands of humans, and even killed most of the vampires he turned. Esme slipped a few times when she was new, Emmett, too. Rosalie is the only one of us that has never ever tasted human blood, but her hands aren't clean either and that's her story to tell. Like I said, we've all killed, Bella. We'd be awfully hypocritical if we judged you for it.

"And I get why you killed them. Partially for vengeance, which I again can't fault you for, and mostly because they were bad people who were doing bad things to you, to your family, and to who knows how many others. I don't want to say they deserved to _die_, but they certainly deserved to pay for their crimes. From what you told us about The Company, they didn't officially exist as a business, and I'd venture a guess that a lot of the employees were ghosts, too, so it would have been hard to bring them to justice the legal way. It's hard to prosecute people that don't exist. I also know that you've already put yourself through the wringer with guilt over this, so you don't need me adding to that. Finally, the biggest reason that I don't judge you or think less of you for what you did for your own survival is because I care about you. More than you know."

"You keep calling me 'love.' Do you love me, Edward?" she asked. Oh hell. That was the last question I expected to fall from her lips. But I knew I couldn't lie to her.

"Yes, Bella. I do. I know we've only known each other for about twelve seconds, but I knew the moment I laid eyes on you that you were special to me. Your scent overpowered that knowledge for a little bit, but once I got over that, I knew exactly who you were to me."

"And who's that?" she asked, scooting closer to me.

I pulled her into my arms again and stroked her cheek as I told her, "my mate." Her eyes lit up at my admission and she crawled into my lap to get closer to me.

"I don't know that I'm ready to repeat those words to you, so I won't yet. But as soon as I am ready, you'll be the first to know," she assured me. I could live with that. She was more than human, but she was still human. The concept of mating for life wasn't something she was familiar with, so I could be patient until she was ready.

Both of our ears perked up when we heard the sound of Charlie's cruiser coming down the road. The look of panic on Bella's face told me she wasn't quite ready to show me off to her father figure yet. "I'll see you at school in the morning," I assured her. I pressed a firm kiss to her lips and caressed her neck with my fingers. Leaving her breathless and a bit flustered I dashed up the stairs.

I went back out the window in her bedroom which faced away from the driveway so Charlie wouldn't have seen me climbing out. He was just parking the cruiser when I headed for the trees. I hoped she'd be ready to tell him about me soon. I wanted to be more than just the Doctor's foster kid to the chief. I wanted him to know that I was with Bella, and even though she wasn't his biological daughter, I knew that he considered her his own, and that she looked up to him in the same way that I looked up to Carlisle. He was a source of wisdom and guidance.

With those thoughts in mind, I ran back to my house to prepare for school the next day. Alice met me at the driveway asking me about the boy she saw in Bella's room. I told her what I knew and Bella's theory about him being programmed. Emmett overheard my mention of the Dollhouse show and immediately dragged us all to the media room so we could watch the show. I had to admit there were some similarities between Bella and the characters on the show, and I've no doubt that The Company would have done to her exactly what was done to these people if they'd been allowed to continue experimenting. Bella did humankind a service by taking out everything and everyone associated with The Company.

That's when it hit me. She saw Lukas as one of "them." In her eyes, he wasn't a survivor or a fellow escapee, he was The Company. Whether or not he was programmed, he was still the only other one of her kind on the planet as far as she knew. Was it really right for her to destroy him? What if he really doesn't know any better? But then again, what if her theory is exactly correct and Lukas is getting his orders from somewhere and doesn't even know it? I knew Bella would figure it out, and soon, but I couldn't help worrying that she might kill him just to ensure that everything to do with The Company was gone.

* * *

A/N: I didn't notice the minor parallels with my story and Dollhouse until I added that bit in this chapter. I knew there was a reason I loved Joss Whedon. For those of you that haven't seen Dollhouse, go and get on Netflix right the eff now and start watching. It only got two seasons before being cancelled, but it was a really good show. Plus, who can say no to Eliza Dushku, right? I'd go gay for a day with her ;)

Up next will be Bella's PoV, she's going to hunt down Lukas and see what's really going on with him.


	13. Chapter 13

Sorry for the delay on this, folks. If you didn't already know (due to reading my story Tattoos only cover so much) my access to from work has been revoked. Therefore, I have to submit everything from home, and I'm just simply not there very often. I've found a bit of a work around, but it's still a major hassle compared to simply uploading a word document to the website. At any rate, here's chapter 13! I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 13

Bella PoV

I debated back and forth on how much I should tell Charlie, if anything. In the ten seconds it took him to get from the car to the front door I'd gone for and against at least twenty-seven times and had a list of pros and cons for each decision. Once he was in the door, I'd decided to tell him everything. Well, everything but the vampire part, since that wasn't my secret to tell, and his knowing it would be detrimental to his survival if the Volturi found out. I made a mental note to look into the Volturi and make backup plans in case Charlie did find that out. I had a hard time keeping anything from him, so that secret even as important as it was would be difficult for me to hide.

"Hey Bells, how ya feelin'?" he asked.

"Much better, thanks," I replied. As he came around the corner, I noticed that I could see the laugh lines next to his eyes more clearly than before. Charlie was in his late 30s, but being on the Police Force and dealing with me had aged him quickly. He was no longer the nineteen year old academy student I'd met when I first came into this world. He even had a couple of gray hairs sprouting near his temple and in his bushy moustache.

"Are you going to tell me what triggered this transition or make me die of curiosity?"

"Early grave for you, Pops," I replied, half joking. "I can't tell you. Not because I don't want to, but it's not my secret to tell."

"Does it have to do with the Cullens?" he queried.

Oh boy, he was far too observant for his own good. "Indirectly," I answered. "They were there when it happened, but by a large margin had nothing to do with what happened. The things that killed those people are what's to blame, and I took care of it."

"They're gone?" he asked.

"Yep, dead and buried, so to speak," I confirmed.

"Bells, you know how I feel about you taking lives," Charlie complained. I stifled an eye roll.

"Well, they weren't human, so it hardly counts. It was like hunting, which you do all the time, so don't get all hypocritical on me, Chief Swan." He knew when I called him Chief Swan that I wasn't going to take any more of his crap. Sometimes he had to be reminded that I wasn't the seventeen-year-old kid I look like. "At any rate, that debacle is over only to move onto a new one."

"What happened?"

"I woke up and some strange kid was standing in my closet," I said.

"What? Who was it? One of the kids from school? How'd he get in? It was a boy, right? Whose parents do I need to call?" He kept spouting off questions almost faster than I could keep up.

"Slow your roll, Chief, it wasn't a kid from school," I assured him, which of course did nothing to quell his worry. "He called himself Lukas and he's… well he's another product of The Company."

Charlie was silent for a few minutes. "But The Company is gone. You took them all out."

"Or so I thought," I answered. "Apparently he was part of a hidden experiment that wasn't documented in any of the databases or buildings I raided. Completely off the grid. I'm still trying to work out what's really going on with him, but as far as he knows, he woke up knowing all about what The Company was and what he was and that he had to find me. His sole purpose was finding me. He delayed that by a bit and decided to read a million books page by page in some library in the midwest."

"Why would he read them when…"

"He could just download them?" I finished for him. Charlie nodded. "I thought the same thing. He's not as evolved as I am. Doesn't have nearly as many abilities nor as much control over his brain. I was able to read his mind and if he was telepathic at all, I wouldn't have been able to. He also isn't telekinetic nor does he have the auto-evolution from what I could gather. When I asked why he didn't just download the books from the Library of Congress website, he asked me if I meant hacking their system, and told me he didn't know how."

"Wow, yeah, he's definitely nothing like you," Charlie agreed. "So what are your theories?"

"Right now, the running theory is that he was a sleeper," I began. "I think they programmed him to be 'Lukas' and gave him enough information about me and a desire to find me, but didn't give him everything that I've got. I think he's meant to be a lure to get me back to the Company. What I don't know is if he truly is from some secret lab that wasn't documented anywhere or if he was created to find me before they were destroyed, and he didn't get to me before I got to them. That's the most likely one, but it just seems a bit too coincidental that he shows up now when I've started a brand new life. And I know enough to know that mathematically, there's no true coincidence ever."

"So what's the plan?"

"Leave him be for now," I replied, shrugging. "I'm keeping tabs on his whereabouts and told him in no uncertain terms that he is not ever to come into this house without permission. I'm going to do a deep read on him to try and determine if he's a program or if he's the real him."

Charlie shook his head in disbelief. "Sounds like you've got it all figured out, kid. You'll let me know if you need anything, yeah?"

"Of course," I agreed.

"Oh, and bring that Cullen kid you're dating by some time," he added. "I'd like to meet him… officially." I gaped at him. "People talk, Bells. I heard it from Mrs. Stanley when I stopped at the gas station this afternoon. Plus, I called over there to to get more information from them when you came home about to go into an 'upgrade.' They told me about as much as you did, might I add and mentioned that you were already very important to their family. Bells, I may live in a small town, but I don't have a small mind. You're dating one of them, and if I recall from what Mrs. Stanley told me, the redheaded boy is the only one in that family that isn't attached to someone else in that family."

Well, hell, so much for keeping me and Edward to myself for the moment. "Yes, I'm dating Edward, okay?" I confessed. "Have you spoken to Jacob or anyone else from the p… tribe?" Jeez, I almost said pack and blew the secret I promised to keep.

He frowned. "No, why would I hear from Jake?" he asked.

Shrugging, I replied nonchalantly, "I just thought he might have some questions about me. He knows now, too. Though it was inadvertent. He and his buddies happened to come upon me when I was attacked, so they saw nearly everything."

"What were they doing way out by the Cullen place?" Charlie asked.

I shrugged again, indicating I didn't know. Charlie was very observant yes, but I was very good at lying. "Didn't ask… was kind of in a lot of pain and worried about getting to the panic room in time. I didn't mean for them to see me or learn about me, but I think they can be trusted. Don't you?"

"Well, I can't speak for the rest of the boys out there, but I'd trust Billy and Jake with the secrets of the President." I nodded my agreement.

Deciding I was hungry again, I headed to the kitchen to whip up something for dinner for the two of us. I gave Charlie the task of putting the salad together and chuckled when he grunted and groaned about vegetables. I decided on turkey burgers with potato chips, which appeased charlie, though he was none-too-pleased about eating turkey instead of ground beef. "It was ground turkey in the spaghetti the other night, too, and the enchiladas. And the only reason I used that turkey was because it was free-range and organic. I saw a little stand outside of town advertising them. They also have chickens and eggs, and I plan to get those there, too from now on. The Thriftway only sells corn-fed beef from cattle factories, and chickens and eggs from the same kind of horrible places, which I refuse to support. The beef industry alone is one of the big contributors to pollution and problems with the environment, and don't even get me started on the treatment of the poor cows. It's not much different for chickens."

Something I said sparked his interest, so I continued. "Cattle have evolved over time by grazing on grass in open pastures. Sixty years ago, America's Beef Industry changed this natural method of raising cattle to concentrating them in feedlots where they are fattened on a steady diet of corn and soybeans. A corn-fed cow grows from 80 to 1,100 pounds in 14 months where as a grass-fed animal takes 18-24 months. As a result, corn-fed beef has become so much quicker and cheaper to produce. However, corn-fed cattle are given an arsenal of drugs because they are constantly sick. Cattle are ruminants, meaning they're animals that regurgitate their food and eat it again, you know it as chewing cud, and they are ill-adapted to eating corn. Humans have taken away their natural food source and replaced it because it's cheaper and easier. But then, humans waste fuel and resources processing corn and soy beans to feed cows, when they could just have the cows graze in the fields where they grow corn and soy. The whole system is so backwards."

I concluded my rant just in time to serve the burgers. Charlie ate his happily, knowing it came from a happy turkey rather than a poor, mistreated and malnourished cow. I wondered if he'd still sneak steaks at the diner though. I'd have to see if I could convince them to buy 100% grass-fed beef and free range chicken or eggs. It'd be a hell of a project. Maybe I could get Esme's help with it. I thought she'd like something like that to do.

After dinner, I headed back up to my room only to see Alice perched on my bed. "Will hiya, Pixie, what brings you by?"

"I saw Esme speaking with the owner of the Diner your dad goes to all the time, and then I saw her buying a building to open up an organic grocery store. She didn't have a clue what I was talking about, so I figured I'd ask you what it's about. I can't see your decisions directly, but I can see those that you make that involve our family directly. So, my question is, what were you thinking about that involved Esme?" she asked.

"Well, I was explaining to Charlie the horrific things that are done to cows and chickens that produce the meat and eggs humans eat every day. It's not healthy for the animals and it's not healthy for the people. Even I don't eat that stuff and I'm not affected by human ailments. I was thinking that Esme might be interested in something to do other than pretending to care for 5 teenage children. I know in the past she's done some teaching or design and architecture, so this would be vastly different. I don't know why, but her name was the first that popped into my head when I was thinking of who I could find to help with this.

Alice sat, pensive for a moment. "Do you think it'd work out here? An organic food store?"

I nodded enthusiastically. "Washington is a wonderful state as far as people who like all-natural organic, locally grown or sourced food goes. Seattle is huge with it. I think we could make it work out here. And especially if someone as charismatic and charming as Esme was heading it up. it'd be a hit. Also, if she emphasizes that her beauty can be attributed to an organic diet, the women in Forks would flock to the store. I'd also like the Diner to start buying grass fed beef and free range chicken and eggs. Charlie eats there often enough that I worry that my changing things at home won't make much difference.

"Why are you suddenly worried about Charlie?" Alice asked, concerned.

"He's the only family I have, Alice. I've known him since I was born. He's aged while I haven't and he's no spring chicken any more. He's not even forty, but he's already showing very early-stage signs of heart disease, and I just want to head it off at the pass if I can. He has no idea that I've noticed, and I doubt even he has, but I'm sure Carlisle or even Edward could take one listen to his heart and know something's not quite right. No doctor would be able to detect it now, even with the best tests and instruments. Like I said, it's very early-stage, but I'd like to stop it before he ever has to worry about being diagnosed."

Alice's eyes went wide. She'd only spoken to Charlie a handful of times, but she already cared for him as I did. As her eyes glazed over, I knew she was having a vision. When she came back, she told me that she'd seen Carlisle, Esme, and Edward over for dinner that weekend. Well, apparently I had a vampire friendly meal to plan. Alice gave me a list of foods that were easiest for vampires to hide in napkins or swallow if they absolutely had to. "Charlie's nearly as observant as I am," I told her. "He'll notice if they're just pushing salad around on a plate or hiding food in napkins. He already suspects something is up with you all, so it may be best to just grin and bear it for one meal."

She nodded in agreement and said she'd break the news to the three that would be coming over. "Just make their portions as small as possible. I know Esme won't be happy about the idea of eating an entire steak dinner or something."

"Steak wasn't even on your list of acceptable foods, Alice. No worries. I got this." With that we both hopped out the window and headed towards the Cullen place. It had only been a few hours since I'd seen Edward, but I already missed him. Perhaps that was more evidence to the idea that he was my one and only just like I was his. Plus, I wanted to show the family my new appearance before I surprised them with it at school the next day.

"Bella! So good to see you're feeling better!" Esme greeted, pulling me in for a hug. She squeezed me tightly, remembering that she couldn't break me. Now more than ever. "You look different. Will you tell us what happened? Edward only gave us a few details."

"Of course, let's gather in the other room." Edward appeared then, pulling me close to him. "Well, somebody missed me," I teased.

"Always," he whispered.

Edward PoV

As soon as I heard Alice's mind, I knew Bella was with her, and I was overjoyed. Sure I'd just seen her a few hours before, but I needed her like air. Being away from her was physically painful. Carlisle assured me that the separation ache, as he called it, would numb over time and we'd or rather, I'd be able to stand being away from her for longer periods of time. At the moment, even being in the next room seemed too far away. I didn't know if she had a similar need to be near me.

I didn't even wait for her to acknowledge my appearance before I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her close. Hell, I was nearly jealous of Esme for getting to her first, but she was just as eager to see her newest daughter as I was. "How's Charlie?" I asked.

"Curious as ever," she replied. "But content to stay in the dark on stuff he doesn't absolutely need to know. Also, I think he has early-stage heart disease. I'm not sure what issue specifically, but I can tell his heart doesn't sound right. I thought maybe your dad could take a listen and offer some opinions."

"Carlisle would be happy to, love, I'm sure. Alice sees my parents and me at your house this Saturday. We're eating dinner with you and Charlie. What's that about?" I asked.

She told me what she told Alice about her ideas with the restaurant and a grocery store, and then about using the dinner as a ruse to do a stealthy heart evaluation on Charlie. "He doesn't like to appear weak, and this would make him feel that way. Even if it's so early on that we can reverse it, he'll hate the idea that something is wrong with him. I think he compares himself to me too much, and when he sees that he's getting older all the time while I don't… well, it bothers him. He knows it isn't rational, but can't help how he feels."

"That's totally understandable, love," I reassured her. "We'd love to come over and meet him officially. Does this mean that he knows about us?"

She nodded. "He told me to bring 'that Cullen boy' I'm dating over to meet him officially. I hadn't told him anything, but it's a small town, rumours spread like wildfire. Plus when he called over here concerned about me, he was surprised to learn how 'important' I was to your family. He's smart; he put two and two together. Oh, and on that note, I'm afraid you all will have to eat human food when you come over for dinner. I don't mean pushing it around your plate or hiding it in a napkin. Charlie's way too observant to fall for that, no matter how slick you might think you are."

I chuckled, kissing her hair. "Of course, love. We'll do just that. I hadn't told the family about Lukas. Do you want to do that as well?" I suggested. She sighed in frustration, but nodded.

We all gathered in the living room while she stood in front of my piano and told us about Lukas and her theory that he's a sleeper. "The unfortunate thing is that the most likely thing is that he is indeed a sleeper, but now that The Company is gone, there's no one for him to report to nor to change his programming, so he'll be this immortal seventeen-year-old kid with not quite enough common sense pining after me for all of time. Though, the fact that there was no documentation of him anywhere in The Company's database is what concerns me. It either means there's a hidden compound that wasn't on the grid, or they had already disposed of everything before I had access to it. Either way, it's problematic."

"So he's a far less bad-ass version of you?" Emmett asked.

"So far less, he hardly qualifies as one of my kind," she replied. "He can't read minds, isn't telekinetic, technopathic, pyrotechnic, doesn't have auto-evolution, the list goes on. He does have super strength and speed, though I'd bet that since he doesn't have auto-evolution, that I'm both faster and stronger by a large margin, though he'll still be leagues stronger than any human. He also can process data quickly, but nothing like me; he's immortal, and can heal quickly. That's it. His mind isn't strong enough to fight the programming, so until he's reprogrammed, he's going to think he's Lukas, my soul-mate for all of time. I need to figure out how to rewrite the code and get him out of my life."

"But he's like you a little bit, right? I mean, you thought you were the only one of your kind, only to then find him. Why would you send him away?" Esme asked.

She stiffened. "He's not of my kind. He's the company. He's one of them, and he has to be destroyed." The words came out of her mouth almost as if rehearsed. "I'm sorry… I know it sounds horrible, but there cannot be any evidence that The Company ever existed and he's evidence. So am I, but as it turns out, I can't die, so I'll just have to live with that. His won't be the first blood on my hands, so it's not that big of a deal."

"But he doesn't know any better," Esme pressed. "He's an innocent."

"You're right, Esme. He is. So was I at one point, but they made me what I am today. They turned me into a killer by killing my family.I have no reservations about what I am. I know what I've done and will continue to do to preserve my own existence. Self-preservation is the number one instinct that I have. He's threatening that. Even if I can't die, those around me can, he can ruin my life by exposing me to the masses. I cannot have that. He's smart. It won't be long before he realizes that you all are something other than human. I cannot have that, either. All the data points to the fact that he has to go. He won't leave me alone, he'll never stop unless I stop him. Even if I reprogram him into thinking he's a normal human and doesn't even know me, eventually, he'll notice that he's immortal or strong, or fast. No amount of psychosis can change that.

"I've thought this through, extensively. The only solution is to kill him. I don't like it. I don't want to do it, but it has to be done. First though, I have to know if there is still a remnant of The Company in operation. If so, I'll have to take that out as well. Like I said, zero evidence."

"What about the bodies?" Emmett asked. We all looked at him. "You said you killed a bunch of people. But you can't have any evidence, so where are the bodies?"

"Dust in the wind," she replied. She explained how she can disintegrate any object into millions of pieces, then set them on fire. They burn until they're nothing but carbon dust. Nothing left behind to identify the specks as anything but ash. "Plus I go into the federal databases and erase their connection to The Company. In some cases I've had to rewrite entire employment histories."

"What about their families?" Esme asked.

"Most of them didn't have any family. It was a prerequisite for working there. No family ties or social ties. That's how Charlie got the job there. His parents were already dead and he had no siblings or family of his own. 95% of the employees were already off the grid, so it wasn't hard for me to wipe them out completely. The few higher ups that did have families… well, they all had wonderful funeral ceremonies that were completely paid for by the very fake shell corporation that all their families thought they worked for. Once I destroyed everything, I took control of the capital of course, and once everything was gone, I routed much of it to those families, as a form of hazard pay. I had to doctor up contracts and disclaimers here and there to make everything seem legit, but no one ever questioned anything."

"You paid for all their funerals?" Carlisle queried. His thoughts wavered between shock, awe, and respect for Bella. While it bothered him that she'd killed so many, he understood the necessity of it. The Company was clearly bad news in all regards, and Bella did the world a service by getting rid of it.

"Not out of my own pocket, now," Bella replied. "But with The Company's amassed funds. I don't know where they got all the money, but it's billions of dollars. Even after I paid the families handsomely for their fallen members, I still have more money than I'll ever use. And it just sits collecting interest in an off-shore account. Plus I have an in on the stock market, so that helps, too. Once a year I have a million of it converted into gold and jewels as well. I figure if I'm going to live forever, society may devolve into such a state that gold or other precious stones and metals becomes the form of currency again. Trying to be pro-active for the inevitable dystopian future."

Emmett laughed, thinking she was joking, but then, seeing her face, he realized she was dead serious. "Wait, what?"

Bella rolled her eyes. "Emmett, don't you read? Dystopian novels are all the rage right now. And look around, the way the world is going, we're not far off from that kind of life. Perhaps not as extreme as the Hunger Games, but many bits of Orwell's 1984 are certainly possible. Especially newspeak. Everyone talks in acronyms now. BRB, LOL, WTF, GTL, STFU, and so forth. It can only get worse before it gets better. I'm simply trying to plan ahead. Unlike some people," she said, winking at Alice, "I can't see the future, so I have to plan for as many possible scenarios as I can. Like I said, I cannot die, so once the world no longer exists, I'll probably have to go and find a new planet to live on.

"We all watch movies and read books. Sure some of them are a bit far-fetched, but all based in real possibilities. The world could actually end. Life on this planet could be completely snuffed out. But what about me? I can survive without food, water, and oxygen indefinitely. Sure it weakens me, but it can be done. For all I know, I could launch myself into outerspace with no space suit or rocket and still survive until I found another planet to inhabit. And that may be exactly what I'll have to do.

Emmett was silent for a while as he pondered her words. "You're definitely more immortal than we are, but we don't need water or oxygen either. Maybe vampires will have to relocate when the humans have killed each other off, too." He said it as if it was the most amazing thing he'd ever thought of in his life. And truly, I doubt any of us had actually fathomed living forever, even beyond the Earth's life. I'm sure we all figured we'd die in a pile of ash someday for one reason or another. But the concept of truly living forever was mind-blowing. Bella was faced with that reality. She literally could not be killed and couldn't die of natural causes. She would live forever. I only hoped I could stay by her side for that long, too.

"What happens if we go without blood for too long? I know we go crazy with thirst, but what if blood never comes. We can only die by being set on fire. What happens if we're endlessly thirsty?" Emmett asked Bella, as if she had all the answers.

"What am I, an encyclopædia?" she retorted. "Oh wait, I totally am!" She laughed. "But I honestly don't have that answer Emmett. As far as science is concerned, you all shouldn't exist and I never studied mythology all that extensively. Carlisle, maybe you know?

Emmett turned his eyes to our father, looking at him like he was about to reveal the secrets of the universe. "Well, from what I understand, we petrify," Carlisle began. "Stefan and Vladimir, the two who ruled the vampire world before the Volturi, once went a long time without moving. They kept completely still for many years, possibly centuries. They began to petrify and now their skin is brittle and cracked all over. Still incredibly strong, of course, but they're very obviously inhuman. But I'm not sure what would happen if we really did go without blood indefinitely. Perhaps we'd fully turn to stone. There's no way to know unless we find a completely petrified vampire."

Emmett considered our father's words for a moment before deciding that for now it didn't matter. The world wasn't going to end tomorrow, so it wasn't like he needed to plan ahead that far just yet. I could tell that Bella had thought of this thoroughly though. Perhaps she even had more information on what planets would be inhabitable out there in the universe than what NASA did.

Esme fixed Bella another meal after Bella assured her that she could eat six or seven meals a day without any worries. "Trust me, Esme, I put away at least three times the food that an average human would. I burn through calories super fast. And if I want to maintain my energy levels, especially when I'm using one of my gifts, I have to keep a lot of food stores in my body. Plus, with my metabolism, there's no way I could ever get fat. Not that I'd even care if I did, though. Hell, if I could, maybe it would help make me less appealing to the opposite sex." Impossible. She could put as much weight as she wanted and I wouldn't care; she'd still be the most beautiful thing in the world.

"Less appealing?" Rosalie asked. "Why would you want that?" Rosalie was still a tiny bit jealous of Bella, but not because she was human anymore. Now it was because of her beauty. My sister had gotten used to being considered the most beautiful girl at school no matter where we went; now with Bella around, she had major competition.

"Well, I imagine you all have this same problem. You're all incredibly beautiful, especially you, Rosalie. Although I suppose humans are naturally scared of you, even though they find you attractive, right?" We all nodded. "Well, humans aren't instinctively afraid of me. If anything, they're even more drawn to me, given my natural instinct to protect them. I've been fending off the opposite sex, and occasionally the same sex ever since I woke up to this world. It wasn't so bad at first when my skin wasn't the texture it is now, but for the past ten or so years, I've had to avoid any and all physical contact with humans, lest they be made aware that I'm far from human.

"Did you do much dating before? When you weren't so… durable?" Alice asked, just honestly curious.

"Not at all," Bella replied. I let out a relieved breath that I didn't realize I'd been holding. She winked at me. "Guess I was waiting for the right guy." I leaned in and captured her lips with mine, even with the entire family watching. I didn't care. The hoots and hollers only egged me on and I lifted her up off the chair and dipped her nearly to the floor before releasing her lips. "Damn, if I keep getting kissed like that, I'm going to forget my own name."

"Oh, Miss Swan… I'm counting on that."


End file.
